Living in the 21st century, humans have
integrated technology into almost every function of our lives, both
business and personal. Technology's evolution grows exponentially in both speed
and complexity in order to make tasks, once impossible,
relatively easy. With its integrated presence and use in
society, people have found ways to apply it
in context of social and political issues. This is apparent when
we look at the Computer-Human Interaction (CHI) conference held
in Denver, Colorado at the beginning of May. With 2,900
attendees in 2017, the annual gathering was the largest of
its kind in the world.
For those in the technology field interested in career advancement and networking, events
such as this CHI conference are a necessity, but with recent travel
restrictions brought by executive orders signed by President Trump,
many technology professionals are either unable or unwilling to travel
to the United States. In fact, many researchers threatened to boycott
the conference if organizers didn't move it outside the
United States. Naturally, the organizers sought a solution to this problem
by using robotics.
On the conference's website, the organizers called this
phenomenon "telepresence attendance." The tech company Beam
gave the conference a steep discount to provide mobile, robotic terminals
available for rent ($300/day) for conference "attendees" who
weren't physically there for one reason or another. German researcher
Susan Boll appeared on one of these rolling interfaces as a way
to protest the Trump administration's immigration and travel ban targeting seven
Muslim majority nations.
Initially, US Courts opposed the ban, both in its original and revised
versions, as discriminatory. By the end of June, however, the Supreme
Court allowed parts of Mr. Trump's travel ban to go into effect.
Though at the time of the conference, many participants were technically
able to enter the US, they still did not attend out of fear or protest.
"It is a political statement, right? That we can allow people to
come," said Gloria Mark, General Chair of CHI and professor of informatics
at the University of California Irving. Even with telepresence robots
reserved for people who were denied visas, the conference still lost
some attendees over the ban.
Still, the prospect of this technology opens new doors
to communication. Think of it as an upgraded version of Skype
allowing people to communicate in the middle of a crowded room attended
by CHI student volunteers to assist with any technical malfunctions, of which
there were a few. In light of this recent development, it appears that technology has
an easier task adapting to the political environment in which
we find ourselves. Politics and law have traditionally been slower to
adapt to expanding technology, but perhaps developments such as this will
significantly assist in bridging the gap.
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