Orwell’s book 1984 was published in 1949. It’s a novel about totalitarianism and mass surveillance of society.
I thought we were getting there by 1984, but lucky for us, we fell shy of that back then.
Now, however, things have changed. The change began with the horrific event of 9/11. Soon after that day the Patriot Act came into focus. People applauded the act, thinking this would provide safety and prevent another event like 9/11. There is a provision in the patriot act which allows the government to surveil any traffic between a US citizen and an adversarial country. That is probably a good thing. The operation was handed over to the NSA to implement the act. Somehow, some way, the good part of the patriot act was put into effect, however, the NSA expanded its scope past surveilling the bad guys to surveilling any one who knew a bad guy to anyone who knew the guy that knew that guy and once this is taken out to 6 levels it means surveillance of everyone in this country.
This means you. Every one of us can be and likely is being monitored. Now with the advent of AI, smile, you may be on candid camera and likely you are. AI is powerful enough to monitor everyone everywhere.
Orwell’s story has finally come into fruition in 2024 and you, I, mom, grandpa everyone has a part in the show. AI can not only monitor, it can change reality to make anyone look guilty.
Welcome to the Truman show.
