online privacy

Big Data is a term used to describe, in general, the gathering of vast amounts of digital information and its subsequent processing, through sophisticated computational techniques, with the purpose of obtaining knowledge. In the case of Big Data, the poem, the term refers to the massive collection of personal information communicated online and its processing for commercial purposes, especially for-profit endeavors related to a persuasion achieved through the detailed knowledge of individuals, a persuasion aimed to be invisible. The poem is not situated in the present but in the near future, when the collection of personal information will be achieved by individual activities online, by the contributions carried out by other people and by sensors that are part of the Internet of things. The personal data, aggregated, will be processed at very high speeds with the assistance of artificial intelligence. The combination between the massive collection of personal data and its subsequent statistical processing, with that emphasis on inferential statistics to achieve persuasive objectives, will lead to a terrible reality. In general, the logic of statistics will be used to define human existence individually and socially in a deterministic way. Big Data's resulting knowledge, the poem suggests, is equivalent to the omniscience generally attributed to deities.

While the advertising industry heralds the use of digital communication technologies as a form of individual empowerment and self-efficacy, people’s interactions with their devices are proving to also have significant negative effects on society. The poem is situated in the near future, when the collection of personal information will be achieved by individual activities online, by the contributions carried out by other people, and through sensors that are part of the Internet of Things. The personal data, aggregated, will be processed at very high speeds with the assistance of artificial intelligence. As it happens in this generative video poem, unique pieces of audiovisual media will be created on-the-fly to achieve persuasive objectives based on individual profiles. The combination between the massive collection of personal data and its subsequent statistical processing, aimed at achieving persuasive objectives, will push us towards a terrible reality. Ultimately, the logic of statistics will be used to define human existence individually and socially in a deterministic way and, unfortunately, it will be guided mostly by commercial interests.

The Singularity is a web-based AI narrative system that demonstrates the ethical issues, hidden biases and misbehavior of emerging technologies such as machine learning, face tracking and big data. The system tracks users' eye positions through a webcam, and continuously feeds users directly into their eyes with infinite Reddit posts containing the latest progress in AI along with random news and ads. By visualizing eye trajectories over time, it suggests possible misuses and dangers of all-pervasive data tracking. The near-invisible operations underpinning the technologies could bring visible and fundamental changes to the society, leading the world to a "technological singularity" in which technology governs all aspects of human society. This work consists of three sub-systems: 

1. Infinite news feed system: The system continually scrapes article titles of latest posts about artificial intelligence and technological singularity from subreddit r/singularity (https://www.reddit.com/r/singularity/ and r/artificial (https://www.reddit.com/r/artificial/). The seemingly uni-directional information flow of news feed is actually bi-directional - user activities are fed back to the machine like in an echo room. Two parallel streams of texts on the screen marks the co-evolution of users and machine systems driven by day-to-day browsing activities.
2. Face-tracking surveillance system: Real-time face tracking algorithm is implemented with ml5js (https://ml5js.org/), a machine learning library that runs in the browser. The face position and the degree that the face turns from the webcam are tracked. The direction of floating sentences always points towards users' eyes. When the user looks away by turning the head, the texts will twist and wiggle as if responding to and disobeying user movement. Such suspicious interaction signifies the disobedience of machines and behavior manipulation by malicious algorithms.
3. Data collection and replay system: User's face movement is also recorded, reshaped and replayed by the system. The trajectory of user interaction is visually represented by intertwining curves drawn on top of the texts. When user is absent from the webcam, the visual artifacts become fully visible and reveal those data that have been secretly collected in the background, arousing concerns of user privacy violation in insecure web systems.

Source: https://projects.cah.ucf.edu/mediaartsexhibits/uncontinuity/Wang/wang.h…

Although This work was presented by Scott as being located in the library at the opening of the End(s) of Electronic Literature Festival Exhibition at The Arts Library. Its was in fact not a part of the official Electronic Literature Organization 2015: The End(s) of Electronic Literature festival, and yet it was there.
The meta-story of this "space-hack" should be seen in relation to the history of the physical object itself (TV), (Taroko-remix),e-poetry as well as Foucault work Discipline and Punish, Panopticism and the power institutions.

The digita part of the Take Gonzo was hosted on the secret sub folder together with to the rest of the digital works presented in the End(s) of Electronic Literature Festival Exhibition Kiosk.