Computers, Society, and Nature

Goodchild’s very-well-cited paper on VGI from the mid-2000s is, among other things, a great example of prescience on the part of an academic–comprehensive (for 8 years ago), concisely-written, and representative of both specific knowledge in the evolving realm of GIScience as well as a general interest in the future of society as it becomes acquainted with powerful new technologies and their potential. While it is taken for granted that scientific papers present expert knowledge, having an understanding of the implications of technological advancement is much rarer to find.

VGI is simultaneously a huge leap in the field of geography–presenting a new way of  collecting data, a new relationship between the field’s professionals and the general public, and a radically increased amount of information about the Earth’s surface–as well as a curious psychological phenomenon similar to avid Yelp reviewers and other altruistic givers of information to public platforms.

Perhaps of even greater import for research–revealing my biases here–is the use of humans as sensors. We are, as Goodchild reminds us, extremely sensitive beings. What better way to collect information that is valuable to humans than by harvesting it from masses of humans, rather than, say, limited embedded sensor networks? Humans know what a traffic jam looks like, what an earthquake feels like, etc. This direction of inquiry into future development of technology quickly transcends the notion of ‘volunteering,’ becoming what other scholars have referred to rather innocuously as “ambient” geographic information. Will the future resemble the popular location-monitoring app Find My Friends, where all of us are “friends” with a central authority who watches over us, benevolently (or not)? Perhaps heart rate monitors could detect disasters even more rapidly than volunteered reports–or disruptions to social order.

VGI and citizen science is a recognition of the potential of mobilizing and utilizing ordinary citizens to aid scientific progress. It is the responsibility of the provider’s of technologies such as Open Street Map and Google Earth to dissolve the boundary between citizen and scientist in a way that preserves accuracy yet encourages involvement. In “Citizen’s as sensors: the world of volunteered geography,” Michael Goodchild describes the intricacies of this boundary in the context of Web 2.o.

I am reminded of last week’s discussion of critical GIS, specifically the issues surrounding the Social Constitution of GIS. I believe the concept of Google Earth mash-up tool is a great example of obscuring the boundaries between elite GIS providers and simple consumers of this technology. In GIS and Society: Towards a research Agenda” (1995), Sheppard speaks of commercially driven GIS and the implications such a GIS could have on the direction of the field. Encouraging citizen involvement in the way Google did diversifies the potential future directions for GIS.

Throughout reading this paper, my opinions on the reliability of volunteered geographic information evolved from skeptical to reassured as Goodchild introduced the increasing institutional support and standards for VGI. In the section titled “Spatial data infrastructure patchworks” the author outlines the way in which government institutions have aided the emergence of VGI. In my studies of the Sharing Economy, I have found the a variety of government responses to the emergence of new user-based technologies and apps. My findings have been as follows: Government sanction doesn’t do much to slow down users, and an embracing of new technology is the only logical response for institutions that wish to remain current and bound in reality.

Smitty_1

Watts’ overview of drones is one of those “this is where we’re at right now” articles providing a closer look at the various categories of UAVs, their capabilities, advantages and drawbacks, etc. with regards to remote sensing applications. Watts claims that drones will spark a revolution in science similar to that of GIS, a claim which stands up best in a future context wherein drones can fly autonomously, freed of human control, much as satellites and a good portion of a standard commercial aircraft flight already are. To me, this is the difference between an evolutionary step (improving unmanned flying systems, which have existed for quite some time) and a revolutionary step (replacing paper maps with layers on a computer; expanding by untold orders of magnitude the amount of information that can be represented, and introducing automated data manipulation).

Watts also overviews the regulatory environment, which, as is the case with so many other rapidly-evolving technologies, struggles to keep up and risks either stymying innovation or permitting dangerous risks. While drones have potential in many areas, Watts is focused on remote sensing research, which is generally carried out by public institutions like universities. For now, as he mentioned, commercial use of drones remains prohibited in fall 2015–notwithstanding exceptions granted to Google and Amazon to test cargo-delivery models in defined airspace. Therefore, expect this limitation to change.

I am very intrigued by the Watts et. al’s brief history of drone use, mainly the concept of unmanned aircraft existing before the 20th century. This is a testament to the intrusive and all encompassing  influence of defense expenditure. More testament lies in the incredible variety of military drone technology described in this paper. I am reminded of last week’s discussion on the weaponization of GIS and maps. Although drone technology existed before the introduction of widespread GIS technology, it is heavily enabled by Geospatial technology and poses an ethical dilemma much more real than the weaponization of paper maps. In “GIS and Society: Towards a Research Agenda”, Eric Sheppard discusses how GIS technology dissolves the notion of space by enabling an individual to be in two places at once (to a certain extent), and UAV technology adds a physical component to this notion.

On a lighter note, I have personally witnessed the commercialization of drones and see benefits of the dissolved barriers of access to users such as Leslie. The latter half of Watts et. al’s paper takes a much lighter tone, and discusses the scientific advancement made possible through drone technology, and more recently, remote sensing technology. I studied remote sensing last year under Pablo Arroyo, and was educated on the potential of LiDAR technology in researching areas difficult to access on foot. The potential for saved time and effort is astounding.

This paper views drone and remote sensing technology from a technical perspective, and while I do not take issue with that, it’s important to note it elects to abstain from discussing social or ethical implications of easily accessible airborne cameras. In the short time drones have become a commercial fad, I’ve heard stories of property disputes (as in video of a man shooting down a quadcopter above his home) and self proclaimed drone-free areas. I foresee an abundance of litigation and ethical discussion in the future.

Smitty_1

In the chapter “Prospects for VGI Research and the Emerging Fourth Paradigm” Elwood, Goodchild, and Sui (2013) touch on important aspects of VGI such as quality concerns, types of engagement, and how it could evolve, especially in terms of coinciding with big data’s emergence. The differentiation between space and place as well as how the distinctions can affect subsequent analysis was potentially an obvious reference for experts in the field but definitely made me look at VGI in a different way. Since my own research has had such a strong focus on spatial scales and geophysical processes, this unfamiliar concept of platial scale was intriguing.

This chapter introduces the reader to the complexities of VGI that they might not have thought of before. Part of that can be attributed to the formatting – the mix of factual literature reviews followed by open-ended musings manages to convey a sense of what VGI looks like now and also what areas should be the focus of further progress. I never thought of VGI as an opposing alternative to spatially focused GIS but rather a citizen-based approach following the same old norms of conventional GIS. The most insightful comments seem to stem from critiques of how participation fundamentally changes the whole input, process and output of VGI. Even more importantly, how VGI is defined can impact much larger institutional structures. Mimicking the authors themselves, I will finish with a few questions that highlight these potential impacts:

“What kinds of state-civil society relationships are produced or transformed through the creation and use of VGI?” (368) And,

“Does VGI imply transformations in the social construction and politics of “data,” “science,” or “geographic information”?” (368)

-Vdev

In Elwood et al’s article “Prospects for VGI Research and the Emerging Fourth Paradigm” I am drawn to the schism described between the spatial orientation of geographers and the ‘platial’ orientation of most people who “tend to refer to locations by name, whether or not such names refer to precisely bounded areas” (363). Furthermore, Elwood et al suggest that “it is remarkable that place-names have played a surprisingly minimal role in traditional GIS”, instead adopting the spatial precision orientation of most geographers.

I wonder if it is possible for VGI to help develop a more ‘platial’ GIS and, if so, what that would look like. If people perceive the world more platially than spatially, then what phenomena are geographers (the supposed monopoly on understanding the world in spatial terms) missing major trends in political, cultural, and urban geography? For instance, I have long that transit-dependent and transit-oriented Montrealers exist in predictable axes that influence the behaviour of otherwise unlinked neighbourhoods. For instance, many anglophone Montrealers live in the West End of the city, and may attending major institutions such as Dawson College, or Concordia or McGill Universities. All of these neighbourhoods and schools are within very close proximity to Sherbrooke Street West. How does the relative connectedness of these neighbourhoods influence the psychology of the area? Does this spatial cluster inhibit flows of contacts, ideas, and investment between relatively well-educated and affluent anglophones and other residents of the city? How do francophones who live in this area perceive their belonging to their neighbourhoods and their contact with anglophones relative to other anglophones?

That example is a bit obvious, but I suspect that many other associations and flows of people impact the city in many ways. I envision that the incorporation of VGI analyses into travel surveys, for example, could help detect more of these axes. For instance, urban geographers, using travel data derived from travel surveys or even OPUS card data could evaluate the movement of Montrealers relative to likelihood of those movements based on the existing network. In other words, what flows are overrepresented given their non-ease (e.g.: 45 minutes drive or 2 metro rides and a bus transfer) and what flows are underrepresented given their ease (e.g.: only 10 minutes drive or 1 or 2 metro stops away).

Of course, it could be argued that such information is interesting but non-useful to geography. But I think there is a rich level of study that is going unexploited given the available technology and our admitted discrepancy between the way people perceive their relationship to space versus the way that geographers conceive it. Studies could be used not only to describe the phenomena of flows but also how to better provide links in the city in order to help facilitate existing but underserved flows, and also to integrate the city’s residents.

-CRAZY15

In his article “The social implications of using drones for biodiversity conservation”, Chris Sandbrook notes that “it has been argued that the use of new technology can be empowering for local groups if it provides them with the means to collect their own data, enforce rules and challenge the claims of others who may wish to mislead them” (640). Sandbrook suggests, for interest, that a community could use drones to collect data for “forest monitoring [and] carbon measurements” in the face of private interests (640). In his suggestion that drone technology could foster more citizen-driven participatory data collection and analysis, I am reminded of the stated ideals my topic (open data). It was initially and still is claimed that open data can improve citizen involvement and decision-making when, indeed, barriers of skill, time, and knowledge have prevented open data from blossoming into a democratic tool. Unlike open data, drones also incur considerable cost for use, from both the cost of the technology and of obtaining permits, presenting further challenges to ‘popular’ use of drone technology as a tool of local empowerment.

In my opinion, GIScientists have an ethical obligation not only to incorporate concerns of impact on citizens in their own “ethnical protocols” (640), but also to critically consider the validity of ‘citizen participation’ arguments used to justify drone technology, open data, and other possibly invasive tools and developments used for GIScience. If, indeed, it is found that the preponderance of data collected and manipulated using drones or open data are benefitting defence interests, governments, and corporations (as I believe they are), then the academy of GIScientists and other academics using these tools should abandon this justification and condemn other academics that use it, at peril of the tools and their disciplines eventually being outed as snake oil salesmen.

After consideration of Sandbrook’s reading, I am drawn to the opinion that not enough mitigations of the social implications of their use are yet developed, and therefore that drones should be ‘grounded’ for academic or research use, even where potential benefits exist. Unlike certain forms of data collection that are either tailored for a specific purpose (e.g.: most academic research) or well know in their methods, availability, and usability (e.g.: census data), data collection derived from drone use violate the principle of informed consent and may produce unforeseen quandaries with unknown consequences.

-CRAZY15

In this article, Goodchild asks what motivates people to contribute to VGI. His use of the term asserted geographic information is very interesting to me, because I expect that as the awareness of VGI diffuses into more diverse demographics, ideological elements may cause tension in how a location is identified or described. I was actually quite surprised to know that the city of Medina, the second holiest in Islam, is so thoroughly mapped on Wikimapia, and linked to photos of important mosques. I would not be surprised if this were to cause controversy between those contributors to VGI who think that this is inappropriate and those who do not. Likewise, Uluru is a sacred sight for the Aboriginal communities who live near it, and tensions may also arise from the controversy over whether or not posting photos and information on Flickr is appropriate. While formal sources of information such as guide books might already be ignoring such questions of sensitivity, what makes VGI different is that dissident voices can assert their position. While Goodchild would describe such activity as “subversive” or “anti-social”, I think one must see the nuance in this situation, as place names are often used for asserting competing narratives. Taking the example of the disputed islands in the South China Sea, I would expect OpenStreetMap to have difficulty coping with the competing contributions of Chinese, Vietnamese and Philippine nationalists. As it stands currently, I observe that the Spratly Islands (claimed by China, the Philippines, Taiwan, Vietnam and Malaysia) nearly all say “Philippines”, while the Paracel Islands (claimed by China and Vietnam) say “China”. Hopefully OpenStreetMap will be able to devise more diplomatic mechanisms to prevent such tensions from escalating into the “anti-social” behavior that Goodchild fears.

• Yojo

Watts’s article about unmanned aircraft systems (UASs) offers a broad overview of the technological development and variety of drones. The main civilian uses mentioned in this article, such as monitoring of wildfires, scientific research and mine safety, do seem like good avenues for the use of this technology. Safety concerns are important in these contexts, though I fear that these dangers may be exaggerated sometimes, such that jobs in aviation are reduced unnecessarily. As far as the legal implications of the proliferation of UASs, the article is concerned mainly with how the American Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), whose mandate concerned with physical safety, will cope with the ambiguities that UASs present. However, this is more from the perspective of how users of drones are affected by regulations, and is less concerned with whether or not the spirit of these regulations will be adhered to. I wonder whether operator licenses may become a necessity, in order to prevent occurrences such as a drone falling from the sky and injuring people due to poor handling. Beyond physical safety issues, there are also societal issues outside of the jurisdiction of the FAA. In the United States, many laws are being passed by state governments in addition to federal regulations. Gary Wickert’s article “Drone Wars: Airspace and Legal Rights in the Age of Drones”, discusses a variety of state laws that are often quite situation-specific. Environmental scientists who use drones in the US may have to keep abreast of a multitude of state laws in order to ensure that they are not accused of harassing hunters, as in the case of Alabama, or aiding hunters, as in the case of Colorado, or taking any footage of a hunter or angler without their consent, in the case of Tennessee.

-Yojo

The Elwood et al article raises many important and intriguing questions, many of which are very relevant to what I discussed in my presentation on critical GIS. There is definitely overlap between the topics, as is discussed in the article. I appreciated that the authors brought up how deeply political it is to create a crowdsourced data resource. The “long tail effect” that the authors discuss in terms of data contribution is really relates to the Leszczynski quote I brought up in my presentation, that just because a data set is crowdsourced and made available to everyone doesn’t mean that everyone is contributing.

Something I had never considered that the authors bring up is the “scaling up” of qualitative methods in GIS. I had looked at qualitative methods that mostly looks at individuals; for example, oral histories and narratives, and hand drawn maps. It’s difficult for me to imagine how that might look, to scale up qualitative data, but the issue of scaling up is a relevant one, considering that one of the big questions of VGI is how to deal with enormous amounts of contributed information. To do this, the authors point to a need to weave together qualitative and quantitative data in mixed-methods approaches.

I also found it interesting that the authors make such a distinction between space/place and spatial/platial, and the fact that they say that geography has long made this distinction. I’ve never been clear on the difference (or the fact that space and place are even different) so this inspired me to look into it further. I looked into Yi Fu Tuan’s work and found that he defines place as “a center with felt value.” Space, in contrast, is open, abstract and limitless. This is definitely relevant to discussions of VGI and critical GIS since, as the authors state, VGI is more place-based than traditional GIS. I hope that we can use VGI and discourses of critical GIS to explore the places that people identify and connect with.

~denasaur

References
Tuan, Y. F. (1979). Space and place: humanistic perspective (pp. 387-427). Springer Netherlands.

Sheppard begins this paper with a beautiful metaphor for GIS: the escalator that geography can ride to finally occupy its legitimate position as a significant member of the quantitative and empirical sciences. I chuckled because I often find myself defending geography to my engineering buddies by saying, “Hey, but we do GIS, it’s like a real science!”

Kidding aside, this paper makes several good arguments that continue to be relevant two decades later. His first argument is that GIS is a social process rather than an apolitical technology. His historic examples of the Mercator maps and the Manhattan project were both useful technologies for one group, but tools of oppression for other groups. I think that we see this same dual process playing out today among GIS researchers, most starkly in my topic of drones. Today we have researchers working on GIS technology that can both be used to target precision fertilizers to improve agricultural output in developing countries, or it can be used to strike human targets in Yemen.

As a remedy to the slightly troubling path that Sheppard sees for GIS, he advocates incorporating social theorists to reduce epistemological biases. I think that in the early stages of the GIS discipline, it was easier to propose bringing together different disciplines. However as a discipline progresses, we see more and more branches and specializations.

For example, on the first day of class, I believe Prof. Sieber mentioned that there’s no such thing anymore as someone who just “does GIS”. You have to be specialized, you have to be highly proficient in software development. My point is that as any domain develops, researchers become so focused on their area of expertise that it perhaps becomes impossible to ask these broader questions from Sheppard. Therefore you get a situation, like in drone research, where you have the physicists and engineers on one side getting all the funding for research, and ethics studies on the other side doing all the complaining. I look forward to this lecture on critical GIS to see what productive paths have opened up towards reforming this unfortunate situation.

¯\_(?)_/¯

-Anontarian