04/2022
04/2022
04/2021
01/2021
01/2021
12/2020
Chevonne Xue
Health codes, based on real data, can be used by citizens or rework workers to apply online by themselves, and after background verification, a QR code that belongs to individuals can be generated. As an electronic voucher for individuals to pass in and out of the local area, the QR code realizes a declaration and is commonly used in the city. On February 9, Shenzhen became the first city in the country to "travel by code": the management measures of personnel passage certification were fully implemented, and residents of all kinds of residential areas and villages in the city were required to show health codes in and out of the district.
The health code is not just a simple substitute for the traditional paper pass. Collecting data of people’s Action trajectory has always been a challenge, especially during the pandemic, and the traditional procedure is more complex, which requires more manpower and material resources. In addition, if we rely on manual collection of information in the epidemic, there may be the problem of cross-infection.(Wang, 2020) With the gradual improvement of the Internet platform and the explosive growth of mobile phones and other mobile terminal devices, the increasing acceptance of Internet information technology by local governments make the publication of health code become possible. The introduction of health code effectively solves two key problems: the problem of information asymmetry such as personal contact history, and the problem of subjective reluctance to disclose: health code is a "rigid demand" for travel.
Health code has gradually become essential not only while people travel but also in their everyday life. It is a voucher for residents to go in and out of public places, and it is also a pass for people who return to their workplace or school from outside of a certain provinces; workplaces and residential areas will judge people's health status according to the color of the health code, so as to carry out accurate epidemic control. However, health codes are still controversial in many dimensions, especially the public information security and the balance of man-machine relationship. This literature review will select seven articles from this semester as materials, using symbolic anthropology and phenomenology as theories and lens to analyze the social significance of health codes as a product, and to explore what is a better man-machine-environment relationship.
All physical or immaterial beings are themselves information bodies, they are created by human beings, but they are also human expressions, an information code left by humans. We are trying to find and dig the meaning from those massive and fragmentized information flows. What anthropology needs to do is not to discover the new world of meaning, but to record, to collect information, and then to speculate on the meaning. Moreover, anthropology is not a prophecy, but to express as clearly as possible what the knowledge so acquired reveals about society by recording the meaning of special social behaviors in the eyes of the actors of these behaviors, and the differences between what social life itself reveals.(Geertz, 2006)
In addition, Geertz also put forward two problems that should be aware of in the study of culture interaction. First, we should always pay attention to whether we have added our own ideology as well as some cultural background and social customs to the process of analysis and narration. "Anthropology exists in books, articles, speeches, exhibitions, or something in today's movies."(Geertz, 2006) There is a projection of consciousness in any medium. Individuals will unconsciously add some of their past experience or cognition when examining and explaining things. But also because it is inevitable, it is more necessary to consciously cultivate and avoid the occurrence of these problems.
In addition, in the process of anthropological research, we should be careful not to lose connection from reality and make the research become a scholar-like structure. If you break away from the thing itself, then it will become an empty shell.(Geertz, 2006) Now there are many people who have gradually mastered a way of narration in the process of learning. When these "scholars" elaborate in this obscure language, they are not so much imparting knowledge as consolidating their cultural capital and cultural status. They use a special way of language to build a set of rules and system, and control the power of discourse.
The algorithm must have the following characteristics:
Input
Any instance of the problem to be calculated needs to be handed over to the corresponding algorithm in some way, and this description of the specific instance of the problem to be solved is collectively referred to as input.
Output
The information obtained after calculation and processing, that is, the answer to the instance of the input question, is called the output;
Certainty
The algorithm should be described as a sequence of instructions consisting of a number of basic operations with clear semantics.
Feasibility
Each basic operation can be cashed in the corresponding computing model.
Finiteness: any algorithm should be terminated and output should be given after performing a limited number of basic operations.
Computer algorithm is the method and step of using a computer to solve problems. Different algorithms are needed to solve different problems. The algorithm will estimate from three dimensions, matching environment, people, and content.
First of all, start with the authority of the algorithm. In the previous section, I briefly introduced the nature of the algorithm, which is essentially a process or set of rules to be followed in calculations or other problem-solving operations.(“Algorithm”) but when the amount of information increases gradually, the algorithm not only needs to do simple data processing, but also needs to introduce more interpretation, analysis, selection and output of the data. In this process, the algorithm has changed from pure mathematics to a more diverse kind of information technology. As Drucker pointed out in his article, “The foundation of digital ontology linked to a belief that mathematical code storage is equal to itself, is a truth identity irrespective of material embodiment...Digital media have their own materiality. But it is in the gap between mathesis and graphesis that the resistance to the totalizing drive of the digital can be articulate”(Drucker, 2001) Just like the western media science, since there is information screening, there is no doubt that it will be mixed with certain ideological and political factors. (Gillespie, 2014) Because the reason why you make a certain choice must have something to do with some kind of cognition. The algorithm itself has no ideology and standpoint, but consciousness appears when the information increases gradually and needs to be collected, screened, classified, and output. Classification itself has strong semantic and political interference. (Bowker and Star, 2000) Even if the data language is compiled with numbers, it can not change the nature of its language. If it is language, it will interact with social discourse.
As a healthy city government product conceived during the epidemic, the health code improves the convenience of data collection compared with the traditional paper pass. To a certain extent, it solves all kinds of problems, such as insufficient personnel, complicated procedures, too many forms, impassable data and so on. Every action track of the code holder will be collected and recorded, intertwined into a huge action network, a monitoring network that can explain the potential logical relationship between people, environment and society. The government has played an authoritative role in monitoring the network. Foucault wrote "is perpetually to use a sort of silent war to reinscribe the relationship of force, and to reinscribe it in institutions, economic inequalities, language, and even the bodies of individuals."(Foucault, 2003) In this war against infectious diseases, the government uses science and technology to infiltrate power into everyone's life more quietly. In Algorithmic War: Everyday Geographies of the War on Terror, the author points out that algorithmic warfare is a form of Foucault's "other continuation of war". In the politics of daily life, the warlike structure of self / others, here / there, security / danger, normal / suspicious is deduced.”(Foucault, 2003) The health code, as an important tool for people to fight with the pandemic, just confirms the concept of algorithmic warfare. However, at present, this war does not exist with countries, but between healthy people and infected people. Who is healthy, who has the risk of disease and needs to be restricted, who is safe, and those people are potential sources of infection and danger. At the beginning of the pandemic, Wuhan people became a group of people that have a Highly contagious, because the title contained people's fear of infected people, and a natural identity of you and me was created, outsiders and locals, healthy people and patients.
In many articles and public media, there are questions about the health code and the algorithm, questioning the indifference of the algorithm itself, which limits people's personal freedom. However, it must be noted that the algorithm itself does not have any bias, but honestly inputs and outputs according to the edited computing language. What people criticize is actually the administrative authority reflected by the algorithm. Whether it is green code or red code, the reason why it can have credibility in real life is entirely because the government authority is endorsing it. But we must not forget that the algorithm is not omnipotent, the algorithm will make mistakes, the system will crash, and often need manual error correction, just as large automation factories also have a lot of detailing work that needs to be done manually. (Bogost, 2015) The same is true of the algorithm, we can not blindly believe in the authority of the algorithm, in fact, in the era of web2.0, users are actively providing information, if each of us do not take the initiative to provide and transmit information, the ability of the algorithm will not exist.(Lialina, 2012) From this point of view, such a right is not a unilateral and authoritative pressure on the user. Just like the cold media mentioned by McLuhan, in the Internet era, the power relationship between the media and the crowd is mutual. We should not blindly believe in the authority of the government and algorithms while ignoring the existing social problems and the resulting inequality of rights.
In the news of the elderly in Heilongjiang, we can see that the introduction of health codes has forced some people to become vulnerable groups, they may not be able to own mobile electronic devices for various reasons, but they have lost the right to move freely. In other words, in an environment with a person's electronic identity as a record, these people who do not have any data in the online world have been abandoned in the electronic world. The lack of an electronic identity results in the negation of the entity identity. To explore this problem, we should first focus on how a person's identity is constructed.
Each of our identities is not constant, and our existence is built in the establishment of one relationship after another, throughout the engagement and interaction.(Massey, 2004) In the process of launching the health code, the government and enterprises ignore a problem, that is, when people take the initiative to enter personal information into the software, this person's digital information makes the person own an entity in the virtual world. and the existence of this entity is based on electronic devices. In other words, if a person does not have a mobile electronic device, then he is passively deprived of the meaning of existence. According to the 44th Statistical report on the Development of China's Internet released by the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC) on August 30th, by the first half of 2019, the Internet penetration rate in China has exceeded 60%. In other words, 40% of people nationwide do not own mobile electronic devices.(CNNIC, 2019) There are a variety of reasons why they can't own electronic devices, because of their age, economic background, or the region they live in. We can not deny that the health code itself is not universal because of its scientific and technological nature.
In the process of the launch of the health code, the people who enter the information are the users rather than all the masses in the first place. As mentioned in the article "Turing Computing", we cannot ignore or deny the existence of users. Because of denying the existence of users, we will gradually forget the existence of computers and interfaces. If we lose this distinction, users may lose their rights and opportunities to protect them.(Lialina, 2012) If we can not formally exist electronic devices and blur the interaction between humans and computers, then people without mobile electronic devices will be socially abandoned. In addition, devices such as mobile phones are particularly important and cannot be lost or damaged. Because when the barrier between the physical world and the virtual world is broken, the identities in the two spaces are blurred, while in the field of e-government and e-commerce, algorithms identify our virtual identities, when our virtual identities are impersonated, stolen or tampered by hackers, our identities are powerless in real life. If there is a problem with a mobile electronic device that connects two spaces, or any Turing complete device, we will lose contact with ourselves in the electronic world. It is even impossible to move freely in an electronic society.
Shuyu Kong proposes the concept of a "third space" through his study of Chinese-language television programs produced in Canada. (Kong, 2013) This concept of third space prevents Asians from falling into the dichotomy of "standard" and "other" mentioned above. They gradually find a new cultural space in the "home country" and the "host country". In this space, new immigrants can choose information according to their own cultural background and needs. In addition, the one-way media communication is gradually changed by the two-way and multiple communication of Internet media. People can even be encouraged to express their own opinions and views.
Shuyu Kong suggests that the "third space" opened up by ethnic media shows a sense of belonging to multiple regions, a new "localness" that transcends the polarized perceptions of birthplace and residence. Overseas Chinese media have created a cultural strategy to cope with capital accumulation, namely "mobile citizenship. " They are also guiding new immigrants to break away from old socio-cultural habits and adapt to new value standards. (Kong, 2013) In the face of the cultural barriers erected by the mainstream media, local Chinese-language media create an opportunity and space for new citizens to actively participate in the discussion of local public issues, to make their voices heard, and to express their identification with multicultural citizenship in this safe space.
In the final analysis, the key of the algorithm is always related to "people". Therefore, the consideration of the humanistic level is essential. The health code itself is a symbol and an intermediary for the interaction between the individual and the society.
At present, modern cognitive intelligence technology mainly refers to the flow of information, including information input, processing, output, feedback and other links, the most important key is the representation of input information. As one of the representations, health code involves not only objective time and space facts, but also subjective behavior and trust value. The scale of convergence of facts and values produced in this particular period is far beyond its own connotation and denotation. It is the organic unity of rational intelligence and perceptual wisdom.
A key problem facing the rapid development of society in the future is how to maintain the coordinated development of man-machine-environment systems at a high level. The "people" here involve managers, designers, manufacturers, marketers, consumers, maintainers, and so on; "machine" not only refers to the software and hardware in intelligent equipment, but also involves the mechanism and mechanism of the connection between various links in the industrial chain; "environment" involves the cooperative environment of "government, industry, university, research and business" in many fields.
An ideal social governance system should achieve accurate governance and humanistic care at the same time. How to achieve it? The organic balance between human nature and mechanism can be realized through the interaction of state, potential, sense and knowledge among man-machine-environment systems. The epidemic is a big test of social governance in various countries. At present, it seems that phenomena such as "data isolated island" still exist widely-data are stored and maintained independently in different departments, and are isolated from each other.
Reference
- Bogost, Ian. "The cathedral of computation." The Atlantic 15 (2015). https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/01/the-cathedral-of-computation/384300/
- Drucker, Johanna. "Digital Ontologies: The Ideality of Form in/and Code Storage—or—Can Graphesis Challenge Mathesis?." Leonardo 34, no. 2 (2001): 141-145.
- 邓俊辉. 数据结构: C++ 语言版. Qing hua da xue chu ban she, 2013.
- Foucault, Michel, and François Ewald. " Society Must Be Defended": Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975-1976. Vol. 1. Macmillan, 2003.
- Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic books, 2006. Ch. 1 - "Thick Description: Toward an Interpretive Theory of Culture"
- Gillespie, "The Relevance of Algorithms" in Boczkowski, Pablo J., Kirsten A. Foot, and Tarleton. Gillespie, eds. Media Technologies: Essays on Communication, Materiality, and Society. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2014.
- Lialina, Olia. "Turing complete user." Contemporary Home Computing. (2012). http://contemporary-home-computing.org/turing-complete-user/
- Massey, Doreen (2004). Geographies of Responsibility. Geografiska Annaler, 86B, 5-18.