The Open AR Cloud, Part 2
The freedoms that we need from an Open AR Cloud are the same freedoms that the FCC already regulates in broadcast communications.
Dec 2, 2019 · 5 min read
“Hey tomorrow
Now don’t you go away
’Cause freedom
Just might come your way.
— Bread, “Mother Freedom”
Photo of Bread via Elektra Records
When I was young, I really had a hard time believing the ±3% results of polling. No one ever called me or any of my friends to ask for our opinion, so it stood to reason that we were certainly under represented in the polling data. It wasn’t until my early thirties, when I invested in audience testing for my first feature film (complete with a questionnaire), that I began to believe that humans as a group will react in predictable ways.
Screenshot of Telepresence
Sure, you have to throw away the outliers that love the film with all their heart, and the ones that think it’s worse than a virus, but the rest of the data is ridiculously consistent, whether you poll 200 or 2,000 people.
Screenshot of Telepresence
Today, we are in the wild wild west of what will become our next Internet.
As I look ahead to the sweeping life changes that society will experience when we live in the Internet of Places, (the new internet that a persistent AR Cloud will facilitate), I worry that the protections people fought for in the past will be lost.
Based on history, it is likely that private companies will try to monopolize the AR Cloud, limiting society’s freedom of expression and the right to communicate freely with each other.
We need to actively work to ensure that the AR Cloud reality to come is consistent with our basic human and social needs. If I were to survey the market today to see what is most important to future developers and consumers of the AR Cloud, I suspect that the results would look something like this:
Make the AR Cloud available (so far as possible), to all people without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex.
Promote safety of life and property in AR
Make it rapid, efficient, and global at a reasonable cost.
Sometimes people want things for themselves that should belong to everyone.
In every transformative era, it becomes necessary to legislate to protect society from the people who take advantage of the grey areas with little regard for the common good. During the radio boom in the early 1920s, when the government tried to regulate radio stations, the owners of the stations, having a great desire to possess these public channels of communication would take the government to court. Since there was no law explicitly granting the government the right to regulate the airwaves, the courts would side with the radio operators. This began to set a precedent that the airwaves could be owned and operated privately, until the Radio Act of 1927 explicitly gave government the right to grant licenses and regulate radios. It was the first legislation to mandate that stations had to show they were “in the public interest, convenience, or necessity” in order to receive a license.
In 1934, Congress passed the Communications Act, which established the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to protect the public even further.”
The FCC’s purpose is to:
“… ‘make available so far as possible, to all the people of the United States, without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex, rapid, efficient, Nationwide, and world-wide wire and radio communication services with adequate facilities at reasonable charges.”
The Act furthermore provides that the FCC was created,
“…for the purpose of the national defense”, and “for the purpose of promoting safety of life and property through the use of wire and radio communications.” The FCC has identified four goals in its 2018–22 Strategic Plan. They are: Closing the Digital Divide, Promoting Innovation, Protecting Consumers & Public Safety, and Reforming the FCC’s Processes.
Protections for the internet are starting to appear on an international scale. In the summer of 2016, the United Nations Human Rights Council released a non-binding resolution condemning intentional disruption of internet access by governments.
Today, the bigger AR Cloud threats are coming from the network effect companies that are working rapidly on siloed AR Cloud systems.
Inspired by the FCC’s mandate, Americans expect freedom, fairness, and inclusiveness in all forms of our communications. It’s only right that the AR Cloud live up to the same standards.
How do we get there?
The US, along with all of the Global AR Cloud community countries need to develop:
A Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau (CGAB) which would develop and implement the AR Cloud consumer policies, including disability access. The CGAB would serve as the public face of the AR Cloud through outreach and education, and through a Consumer Center, which is responsible for responding to consumer inquiries and complaints. The CGB would also maintain collaborative partnerships with countries, and their equivalents to states, local, and tribal governments in such areas as emergency preparedness and implementation of new technologies.
An Enforcement Bureau (EB) which would be responsible for enforcement of provisions of a 2020 International AR Cloud Communications Act (should one exist) and laying out the rules, AR Cloud communication orders, and terms and conditions of corporate/technological authorizations. Major areas of enforcement that would be handled by an Enforcement Bureau are consumer protection, local competition, public safety, and security.
An International Bureau (IB) to develop international policies in AR Cloud communications, such as coordination of AR Cloud standards and orbital assignments so as to minimize cases of international electromagnetic interference involving service. An International Bureau would also oversee compliance with the international treaties and other international agreements.
A Wireless Telecommunications Bureau (WTB) to regulate domestic wireless telecommunications programs and policies, including licensing. The bureaus would also implement competitive bidding for spectrum auctions and would regulate wireless communications services including mobile phones, HMDs, data throttling, public safety, and other commercial or private services.
YOUAR takes this seriously. We are a founding member of the Open AR Cloud Association, which is working hard every day to help policymakers build a framework in which the Internet of Places can be safe, shared, and operated in the public interest. To learn more, and to help us make an Augmented Reality worth sharing, please visit the Open AR Cloud.
