Digital wormholes

Abstract

Cameras, microphones, and other sensors continue to proliferate in the world around us. I offer a new metaphor for conceptualizing these technologies: they are digital wormholes, transmitting representations of human persons between disparate points in space–time. We frequently cannot tell when they are operational, what kinds of data they are collecting, where the data may reappear in the future, and how the data can be used against us. The wormhole metaphor makes the mysteriousness of digital sensors salient: digital sensors have brought us to a strange place. If humans are to be capable of making sensible decisions while under observation by digital sensors, we must improve the epistemic position of potential sensor subjects.