Lifelog

From TinWiki.org

Lifelog is a program that was proposed by DARPA in 2003, intended to catalogue every individual citizen's history into an ever-evolving summary. A brief look at official documents suggests that the program was initially designed to augment the CTS (Combat-zones That See) program, which is another DARPA creation proposed alongside Lifelog, designed to visually monitor the entire country.

Unlike CTS however, Lifelog was reportedly terminated in 2004 due to "a change in priority", the only comment from a DARPA spokesperson about the program.

1 Life Management
2 Combat Management
3 Speculation
4 External Links
5 Relevant Discussions

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Life Management

As the program's name suggests, Lifelog categorizes any and all aspects of an individual's life into easy-to-read "threads". The official objective was to create an efficient, advanced method in which one a complete collection of personal data, including email, phone conversations, personal conversations, T.V. shows, movies, music, past experiences, and anything else; whether mundane or meteoric, the information is stored for later comparison in order to better manage one's life. Official DARPA documents compare the system to a highly advanced personal digital assitance, or PDA, which would eventually evolve into a "personal digital partner", apparently DARPA's version of the next level of personal technology.

In order to help one along in managing life, the program is designed to be integrated with a variety of sensors with which to record personal data, as well as the necessary data storage hardware, and AI (artificial intelligence) models to store, interpret, and retrieve the data in logical patterns.

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Combat Management

In its own documentation of the project, DARPA presents an interesting contradiction of Lifelog's ultimate purpose.

The objective of the program is initially outlined as was explained in the section above, a complex life management system. However, only a few paragraphs later in the same document, it is stated that Lifelog's goal is to combine collected personal information with the technology to turn standard computers and PDAs into powerful battlefield tools in order to create a more effective training matrix, and to enhance command and control knowledge necessary in combat situations.

While the program is conceptually diverse enough to fill both needs, the fact that these goals are mutually exclusive asks profound questions about its ideal use.

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Speculation

Although Lifelog was officially cancelled in 2004, many feel it is more likely that the program went black. Given the nature of CTS and the time in which both programs were initiated, Lifelog seems to be the perfect database sorting match for the afore-mentioned surveillance program.

Regardless, the fact that such technology is even being developed by a government speaks volumes in regards to the current standards of society. Unlike similar intelligence-gathering projects, Lifelog readily states that it is a database for regular people, not suspected criminals or terrorists.

A government-maintainted artificial intelligence system designed to track, record, and ultimately control all information pertaining to the population seems to be little more than an obvious step towards control of the population itself.

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