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Blessing or curse? Sci-fi gadgets I don’t want
by Kevin Hofer
We need to talk about Samsung's future plans at CES
7.1.2020
Translation: machine translated
Video: Stephanie Tresch
In Las Vegas, Samsung presented its vision for the decade from 2020 to 2030. As casual as this may all sound, we end users have a completely different debate to the company.
"When will Samsung Ballie be available?"
"How much will the GEMS system cost?"
"When can I pre-order the Samsung fridge?"
"When will the sale of the old Samsung VR glasses start?"
Good people, we need to talk.
Those above are all questions I expect to see in the comments column below. Those are all questions you shouldn't be asking. Not only because we have no idea at this point, but also because that's not the point.
The reason why the questions are completely daft at the moment is this: We need to ask ourselves completely different questions. We need to ask ourselves: Do we want all this? And if so, why?
That's why I'm asking you to put your urge to consume aside and think critically. Am I right at the end of this article? Am I a muddlehead who has seen one too many disaster films? I'll leave that decision up to you, but I would like you to give me a few minutes of your time to stimulate your thoughts.
In order: Las Vegas, CES, Samsung keynote. A yellow ball rolls onto the stage. It looks at HS Kim, President and CEO of Consumer Electronics Division at Samsung Electronics. Kim asks it a question, the robot - its name is Ballie - beeps back. Sounds a bit like R2D2. Applause echoes through the conference hall of the gigantic casino "The Venetian".
Everything is getting smart, even the houses
When HS tells Kim Ballie to take a walk with him on stage, the yellow ball, whose camera resembles that of a Samsung Galaxy smartphone, does just that. It even adapts its speed to the human and keeps a decent distance. "Beep beep" says the technological masterpiece.
Ballie recognises people, can tell them apart, makes friends with dogs and coordinates the other smart devices in the household. When you're not there, Ballie regularly goes on patrol to see if anything needs cleaning. Then he calls the hoover over and it tidies up. "Beep beep" Ballie calls to the hoover, which returns to the charging station.
Ballie is a masterpiece of technology, no doubt about it. Ballie combines so much that other devices cannot. The functions that Alexa or Siri or the Google Assistant have taken over so far are taken over by Ballie. Because Ballie is mobile, you only need one device, not one for every room. Ballie is one of the smartest devices I've seen so far. I like Ballie.
During the keynote, Samsung also presented an exoskeleton called GEMS. This stands for Gait Enhancing Motivation System. In real life, it looks like a pair of swinging trousers, but gives your legs additional stability and strength.
The Gems system helps people with walking disabilities to walk straight and stable, and even lets them dance. The Gems system will change the world if it is rolled out on a large scale. What if stairs are no longer an insurmountable obstacle for people with walking difficulties? How much quality of life will safe and independent walking create? Imagine for a second what it would be like if you could no longer walk. Not the end of the world, especially not in Switzerland, but still extremely unpleasant. Coffee cup in the cupboard? No coffee for you. Letterbox? Too high. Kerb? Without a sanded edge. Bus? Only with help. Gems puts an end to this.
The included AR glasses also personalise and automate fitness training in conjunction with the Samsung smartwatch.
In addition, houses, cars and all sorts of other things are to be equipped with sensors. On stage, HS Kim talks about megacities, smart cities that keep an eye on you at every turn and coordinate traffic, people and the like.
That sounds great. That's what Samsung wants in the next ten years.
This is a problem.
Data protection is a question of profit
Samsung only ever briefly touches on the topic during the keynote. The word that is often swallowed by the speakers on stage is "privacy". It's about the data collected by a Ballie, a Gems or a smart wall. When Ballie follows you around while you stagger hungover towards the toilet in your boxer shorts, it collects a huge amount of data about you. Some of it is relevant from a marketing point of view, others might just embarrass you.
Gems knows where you got your hangover last night. Ballie knows that you still weren't fit even at midday, because Ballie asked your smartwatch about your recovery status.
Samsung claims that devices like Ballie are smart enough to keep artificial intelligence local. This means your secrets remain secret. Otherwise, the data that is transferred is anonymised using blockchain technology - Samsung has not made the use of blockchain that clear.
Samsung takes your privacy seriously. Except when it hands over your heart rate data to HeartWise. Then the data goes to "selected partners". Who decides who is selected? What criteria are used to select these partners? What do these selected partners do with my data?
That's the crux of the matter. Samsung is a company that wants to make a profit, indeed has to. Samsung does this so well that a few years ago it accounted for almost one-fifth of South Korea's gross domestic product.
As long as this success continues, the share price will remain the same. If privacy suddenly ceases to be profitable, then it should only take a few minutes for me to get all the data collected by Ballie for little money, so that I know when all men between the ages of 24 and 26 in Zurich get up on a Saturday. Including contact email, of course.
This is precisely why we end users should not trust Samsung and other large corporations - Google, Amazon, digitec.ch, Apple, Facebook and so on - unconditionally. No matter how well encrypted a data transfer may be, no matter how anonymous the blockchain is, no matter how nice Ballie is to us... it's only good for so long before the profit is no longer right.
Nevertheless, with Gems and Heartwise and Apple Health and all the other programmes, the corporations are doing a lot of good. After all, who doesn't want deaf people to be able to make themselves understood with Huawei's deaf app? Who doesn't want people to be able to walk if their legs simply can't?
This is inspiration, this is drive, this is what technology can do for us.
That's exactly why I asked you at the beginning for some time and your thoughts. I'm not saying that Ballie and Gems and co. are the devil. Because the benefits are obvious. If I could make one last request in this article, I want you to think about your data before making a purchase. I don't want to tell you that you shouldn't buy Ballie. Or that you absolutely need Ballie. I want to tell you to be critical of yourself and realise the value of your own data. Then please make an adult decision that takes into account the risks to your privacy and not just the fact that Ballie beeps and tells your toaster to make your toast golden brown when you come out of the bathroom. "Beep beep" says Ballie to the toast.
Is it okay if someone sells your data so that a corporation can make a little more profit?
Journalist. Author. Hacker. A storyteller searching for boundaries, secrets and taboos – putting the world to paper. Not because I can but because I can’t not.
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