Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"Science fiction operates a little bit like science itself, in principle. You've got thousands of people exploring ideas, putting forth their own hypotheses. Most of them are dead wrong; a few stand the test of time; everything looks kind of quaint in hind"
- Peter Watts
 |
| Ugly T-Shirt | ||
| Uses disruptive patterning to make the wearer invisible to computerized surveillance techniques. |
| She turned and saw Garreth, and behind him Pep, wearing what she instantly knew must be the ugly T-shirt.
"I didn't think it would literally be that ugly," she said, stepping through the second zip. It was. Pep, in black cyclist's pants, wore the largest, ugliest T-shirt she'd ever seen, in a thin, cheap-looking cotton the color of ostomy devices, that same imaginary Caucasian flesh-tone. There were huge features screened across it in dull black halftone, asymmetrical eyes at breast height, a grim mouth at crotch-level. Later she'd be unable to say exactly what had been so ugly about it, except that it was somehow beyond punk, beyond art, and fundamentally, somehow, an affront. Diagonals at the edges continued around the sides, and across the short, loose sleeves. Pep leered at her, or perhaps only looked at her, and pulled the strap of a dark green messenger bag over his head, tucking what she recognized as Garreth's other party favor into it. "Don't forget to take that bag off," Garreth said. He was seated in a black workstation chair that appeared to have been taped to the shiny aubergine floor. "Queer the visuals, otherwise." |
| Technovelgy from Zero History,
by William Gibson. Published by Tor in 2010 Additional resources -
|
Here's another quote:
For earlier takes on the idea that there are particular patterns that can fool artificial intelligences (AIs) or pattern recognition systems (even human ones), see Van Goom's Gambit from Van Goom's Gambit (1966) by Victor Contoski and BLIT (Secret Basilisk) from BLIT by David Langford.
See also this paper Adversarial T-shirt! Evading Person Detectors in A Physical World.
For the more general case of suits that scramble input or otherwise fool the eye (and perhaps the machine) see the scramble suit from A Scanner Darkly (1977) by Philip K. Dick, the mimetic polycarbon suit from Neuromancer (1984) by William Gibson and the abglanz from The Mountain in the Sea (2022) by Ray Naylor.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“The ugliest T-shirt in the world,” he said, and kissed her cheek.
“The Bollards will be disappointed,” she said, coming in and closing the door. “I thought they’d had me sleeping in that.”
“So ugly that digital cameras forget they’ve seen it.”
“Cameras can see it. The surveillance cameras can all see it, but then they forget they’ve seen it.”
“Why?”
“Because their architecture tells them to forget it, and anyone who’s wearing it as well. They forget the figure wearing the ugly T-shirt. Forget the head atop it, the legs below, feet, arms, hands. It compels erasure. That which the camera sees, bearing the sigil, it deletes from the recalled image. Though only if you ask it to show you the image. So there’s no suspicious busy-ness to be noticed. If you ask for June 7, camera 53, it retrieves what it saw. In the act of retrieval, the sigil, and the human form bearing it, cease to be represented. By virtue of deep architecture. Gentlemen’s agreement."
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from Zero History
More Ideas
and Technology by William Gibson
Tech news articles related to Zero History
Tech news articles related to works by William Gibson
Ugly T-Shirt-related
news articles:
- Adversarial Patches Trick Computer Vision
| Chameleon Personalized Privacy Protection Mask |
| Spherical Police Robot Rolls In China |
| Vietnam To Have Full Biometric Transparency |
| Simple Way To Defeat AI Face Recognition |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'Hocus-pocus religions and archaic weapons are no substitute for a good blaster at your side.'
'Oscar picked up a trowel. 'I'm the tool for the mortar,' the little trowel squeaked cheerfully.'
'... he waited for the robotrix attendant to finish fueling up his ship.'
The Roujin Z system provides care to fully bedridden patients - and then some!
'Aerostat meant anything that hung in the air. This was an easy trick to pull off nowadays.'
'The Ringworld had no horizon. There was no line where the land curved away from the sky.'
'An adjustment panel outside the door would cause it to extrude various appurtenances in memory plastic...'
'Annealed in any shape for a time, and codified, the structure of that shape is retained down to the molecules.'
It's not really polite to tear the limbs off robots.
'...the imaginary companions discovered by needful children.'
