Temporary Expert Final

The main assumption of my research this semester has been this: we can’t prevent being identified by nation-states and corporations. The apparatuses of surveillance will only become cheaper and easier to set up. What we need to do is make the concept of being identified meaningless. I identify three ways to get there.

1 Counter-Fluidity is a tactic of defence against a system that is constantly trying to classify us and discover our “essential” selves. Counter-Fluidity means behaving in a constantly shifting, deliberately erratic ways in our interactions with identity systems to destabilise their information.

Repersonalized is an app that utilises the tactic of Counter-Fluidity. When a user signs up, the app shows them how their personality is profiled based on their likes. The user can then choose to like pages that would change how Facebook sees them. For example, if you are classified as calm, the app would encourage you to like the Kurt Cobain page to be seen as more neurotic.

2 Zero-knowledge Lifestyle means interacting with the various systems of everyday life — finance system, medical system, education system, etc. — without having to reveal any information about you other than what is absolutely necessary. For example, proving that you have good credit without revealing your name, your social security number, etc.

3 Algorithmic Pseudepigraphy is a tactic of expressing yourself through other people’s identities using data-driven techniques (e.g. generating recordings in their speaking style). The emergence of generative machine learning models that produce uncannily accurate reproductions of people’s voices, facial expressions, linguistic and artistic styles, creates a possible future in which every identity has been converted into a collective identity. Instead of fearing that future, we should perhaps look at the long history of group pseudonyms, from Poor Conrad to Anonymous, which have for the most provided a way for outsiders and the disefranchised to coordinate and produce effective political action.