Peer2Politics

This panel critically addresses the prevailing vision of the Internet of Things (IoT) as a top-down mega-infrastructure of interconnected every-things, in an attempt to articulate viable bottom-up alternatives. Practices and methodologies for tweaking, disrupting, and appropriating existing infrastructures will be discussed, bringing to the foreground smaller-scale systems and networks of sensing devices, computational artifacts, and humans, to address issues of importance for the everyday life of the user and the local community. The panelists will ask whether such systems and interventions can become sustainable through enhancing citizens’ literacy on the use and appropriation of IoT technologies and sensor networks.

Researchers anticipate a future where sensors transmit money alongside data, as they are paid in bitcoin for their information.

Terms such as the "Internet of Things", "Cyber-physical Systems" or "Industry 4.0" refer to different aspects of a new industrial revolution that is well underway. The first industrial revolution began about 250 years ago in the Western world and it changed society for good - for better or worse. The result of the new industrial revolution will change the industrial landscape beyond recognition. The all pervasive connectivity of the Internet of Things, for instance, will make current industry segments disappear. Whether this will lead to a renewed and all-inclusive humanism or to a 1984-style control scenario is up to us. Historically, the Renaissance in Western Europe towards the end of the 14th century presents a technological and social watershed with surprisingly similar patterns.