你愿意让谷歌掌握你所有的小秘密吗？

     今天谷歌公司（Google）开放了“探索者项目”（Explorer Program），让公众有机会花1500美元购买谷歌眼镜。尽管零售点寥寥无几，但谷歌眼镜俱乐部的势力范围不断扩大已经让科技博客圈和硅谷兴奋不已了——因为大家终于能用这个工具完完整整地记录生存现状、生活的每个时刻、以及我们碰到的所有面孔了。

    可是那些没戴这种眼镜的人该怎么办呢？由于没有法律或政治机制让他们不用谷歌眼镜，他们只能要么随大流，自己也戴上一副，要么只能闭门不出：毕竟现在我们的全部生活都变成可以拿来记录和分享的对象了。Facebook公司首席执行官马克•扎克伯格唯恐我们因为私生活全面曝光产生过度的焦虑情绪，因此他提醒大家，隐私早就不是什么“社会规范”了。它完全就是上世纪的老一套嘛，对不对？

    而欧洲和亚洲的一些国家的公众近期则对隐私的范围展开了激烈讨论，结果立法机关为了解决这个问题特地采取了行动，甚至强制要求保留数码设备拍摄时的快门声，同时不允许使用脸部识别软件。但在美国，就算是爆出了国安局（NSA）搜集隐私数据的丑闻，大家也没有针对全国媒体所使用的技术和隐私问题展开广泛的讨论。

    我们研究美国消费者对技术的看法时，总能听到同样一句话：“可是谁会对我的照片有兴趣呢？”这么些年来，我们聊过绝大多数人在谈到隐私和安全问题时都显得漠不关心。尽管多数人都承认并不喜欢在自己没同意的情况下被别人拍摄或录音，但他们并不知道拿这种情况怎么办——围绕创新有一整套吹捧的说辞，同时技术对我们的私生活不断进行渗透——这已经是既成事实了。

    根据谷歌首席执行官埃里克•施密特的说法，如果我们的整个生活都被记录下来并呈现给别人，也没什么可担心的，因为：“如果有些事你不想让别人知道，也许从一开始你就不该干。”通过占据道德制高点，他把隐私算成了针对违法活动的保护机制。当然，现实远比施密特眼中这样单一平面的道德体系要复杂得多。我们每个人都处于有着不同道德规范的各种社交圈中：在某个圈子里行得通的事情到了另一个圈子就不一定行得通了。

    讽刺的是，社交圈存在交集的Google+却完全是按照这个原则构建的——我们都会做一些不希望自己的长辈、重要关系人、朋友或老板看到的事情。但谷歌眼镜却将彻底改变这一切，因为我们将无法控制自己的生活会以什么样的方式被人记录下来，放到网上共享。

    Google opens up its Explorer Program today, offering the general public an opportunity to purchase Glass for $1,500. Although spots are limited, the expansion of the Glass club has created tremendous excitement across tech blogs and Silicon Valley -- finally, the tools are readily available to record our complete existence, every moment of our lives on Earth, every face we encounter.

    And what about the people on the other side of the camera? As they have no legal or political mechanism for opting out of Glass, they can either jump on the bandwagon or stay home: Our entire lives are now fair game for recording and sharing. Lest we fret too much about the prospect of full disclosure, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg reminds us that privacy is no longer a "social norm." It's so last century, right?

    Other countries in Europe and Asia have recently had robust public debates about the limits of privacy, and, as a result, legislation has taken measures to address the concern, even mandating shutter-click sounds and disabling facial recognition software. Yet here in the United States, even after the NSA data-collection scandals, there have not been enough extensive ethical conversations about technology and privacy in the national media.

    When we study U.S. consumers' perceptions around technology, we hear the same thing over and over again: "But who would find my photos interesting?" Most people we've spoken with over the years express a sense of apathy regarding privacy and security concerns. While many of them admit that they don't like being photographed or recorded without consent, they simply don't know what to do about it -- the rhetoric of innovation and progress that accompanies tech's invasion into our private lives makes the whole thing feel like a fait accompli.

    According to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, we need not be concerned if our entire lives are recorded and made visible to others, because: "If you have something that you don't want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn't be doing it in the first place." By taking a moral high ground, he reduces privacy to a protection mechanism for illegal or illicit activities. Reality, of course, is far more complex than Schmidt's vision of a flat monoculture of morals. Each of us occupies a variety of social worlds with different moral codes: What might be okay in one circle isn't necessarily okay in another.

    Ironically, Google+, with its overlapping social circles, is entirely structured around this principle -- we all do things that we don't want our grandmothers, significant others, friends, or bosses to see. But Glass changes all that because we no longer have control over how our lives are recorded and shared online.