Back in the late 2010s I covered the onrushing surveillance state heavily. Having said most of what I wanted to say, I let it lie for the time being. But now it’s almost here. The NYTimes has a decent article on what Uganda is doing (and if a third world nation can do it…) Of course the article blames it mostly on China.

Ugandans have discovered that, increasingly, there is nowhere to hide. Civic life here is defined by thickening webs of state surveillance built with foreign help. Chinese cameras and facial-recognition software monitor the streets; Russian radio frequency chips implanted in license plates have been tracking cars in real time; Israeli software plunders the private contents of phones. Technology has created an intrusive eye that never blinks — a stealthy weapon for dictators keen to stifle speech and thought.

But worse than that is this:

Leaked internal documents revealed Toka’s technology can reportedly locate cameras, remotely access them, watch live feeds and even alter live or previously recorded footage while concealing evidence the system was compromised.

YES, THEY CAN ALTER LIVE OR PREVIOUSLY RECORDED FOOTAGE WHILE CONCEALING EVIDENCE THE SYSTEM WAS COMPROMISED.

Hmm I wonder where that ability could come in handy? The stated purpose for altering footage? “Masking of on-site activities” during “covert operations.”

Yeah, right. I mean, I’m sure it’ll be used for that, but more sinisterly it will be used to alter footage to frame people. Given how often police lie on the stand and fake evidence you know this will happen. Imagery is going to have to be discounted in trials, and we’ll have to go back to witnesses, but you know that won’t happen soon, this is just too convenient for any cops or intelligence organizations. You don’t even have to use a honey trap, you can just change the footage.

Many surveillance devices now don’t just watch, they listen. They often have thermal imaging, face and gait recognition. It’s harder and harder to avoid them identifying you. Even without chips, America’s flock cameras monitor all car travel by scanning license plates.

Then there’s the phones most people carry everywhere. They’re mobile listening and tracking devices and it’s trivial to take over the camera as well. I tend not to carry a phone with me most of the time, but it’s becoming more and more difficult to navigate life without a phone these days. Indeed, in China, it’s essentially impossible and I expect it won’t be more than a few years before it’s true in most of the West.

So governments and any big corp that cares enough will know exactly where you go, and where you’ve been. They can alter footage to embarrass you or frame you for a crime. They can fairly easily listen in to what you say, even when you’re not using the phone.

Then we have autonomous armed robots. The armed robot dogs are already here, same with armed flying drones. The great problem for elites is always the issue of enforcer reliability. This is why Saudi Arabia is getting its ass kicked on the ground, because they deliberately crippled their troops to reduce the possibility of a coup.

Now, add in AI, which elites hope will allow them to replace technical workers: the problem with using all this tech is that you still have the enforcer issue: but if the autonomous robots can be maintained and built by AI, well, that problem is lessened. (Some people will still be necessary, but far less.)

This enables a full panopticon on daily life, especially for people who use “smart” home devices, which are notorious for the data they send home. They’ll know who you are, what you’re doing, who you associate with, how much money you have, what you spend it on, etc, etc… Then they’ve got their robots to take you out, or they can frame you by altering the video that they have of you to show you committing a crime.

It’s silly to think they won’t take advantage of this to lock societies down and attempt a full authoritarian state where rebellion is impossible.

This has always been the endgame of the new communications, AI, and robotics techs, as I wrote well over ten years ago and it’s far worse than 1984, because in that novel they couldn’t store the information, someone had to be watching the camera feed. Likewise as age verification (to protect the kiddies, honest) becomes ubiquitous, getting information the state or oligarchs don’t want you to have will become harder and harder. Ban the sites they don’t like, forbid workarounds, keep track of everything you do and overcome the information problem. In the old days a group like the Stasi might know a great deal, but they couldn’t analyze every individual: AI makes that possible and firms are already working on pre-crime tech to predict who’s a radical or otherwise a danger to the state or those who profit from it. The first step, of course, will be de-banking, which doesn’t even need a court to find you guilty of anything.

Know everything, predict what people will do, make sure that they get only the information you want and if necessary, deal with dissidents with autonomous robots who are (they hope) utterly reliable.

It’s what authoritarians have always wanted, and it’s almost here.

 

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