GIS has a lot of potential, in addition to many potential pitfalls. The potential of GIS is the exploration of different geographic interactions. For example, GIS has made it possible for businesses to find where things such as marketing, resources, and customers are most effective and/or readily available. In addition, it helps policy-makers find where voters are active or donating money. In addition, GIS links data and maps, and it helps create a visual aid for various different types of information. From showing where the most McDonald's are located in the US to where the most casualties in Iraq are, GIS enables the user to see data in a geospatial context.
GIS has also allowed for the expansion of the types of information given in maps. Topological maps include data about elevations in addition to the location of places, freeways, and waterways. In addition geocoding allows finding locations based on ZIP codes or addresses. Recently GIS has become available in cars and on mobile devices, allowing users to be able to access information about their location both nominally and absolutely almost any time they want to. Furthermore, mapping things such as resource depletion and the occurence of crimes can help people live better and safer lives.
The potential pitfalls of GIS include issues with privacy. For example, the fundrace maps shown in lecture allow users to access the name, address, occupation, and dollar amount of political donations. For more controversial issues such as California's prop 8, this type of information could lead to danger for the people featured in the map. The growth of neogeography with software such as GoogleMaps, anybody can make a map of anything they want, and the validity of the information is hard to verify. In addition, copyright and privacy issues can also arise.
Furthermore, as we know more and more about what is around us, we realize how little we know (the paradox of context). We also like to know about others and the world around us but would rather others not know the same information about us (the problem of transparency). These two issues are not easily reconciled by GIS, because it expands and visually represents the amount of information we have about the world around us. It is an important tool for businesses, agriculture, education, and many other disciplines, but as with all of technology, the source and the information presented should be carefully looked at to ensure validity and protection of privacy.
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