Worzel's World: Big Brother goes hi-tech

 

It surprised me when I checked my records and found that an article I wrote called ‘Big Brother is Watching’ was published way back in 2007. I know this was when it was published because my computer time and date stamps everything I write. Provided that she is programmed correctly she gets it right. Because she is not human her memory is not altered   with the passage of time. Fish do not grow longer nor do exploits grow bolder. In the cold, hard and unforgiving digital world, dates remain unchanged and average sized snapper are forever only average sized snapper. 

The article noted the lengths Big Brother goes to, to gather information, but how poorly he interprets and applies that information. In the 14 years since Big Brother has come of age, his manhood has not been characterised by mercy or wisdom. He has though gleaned some knowledge of his own shortcomings – perhaps he read my article – or through laziness and pragmatism he has used massive technological advances in artificial intelligence to do the grunt work for him. Now artificial intelligence directs the eyes that watch and sifts, processes, evaluates and sometimes even acts upon what those eyes see. Robots have moved from the assembly line and into the wider world.

Unmanned cameras police the highways. They can snap a photo, send a fine, and bank the payment all without recourse to human input. So much for habeas corpus. It is not only the speeding who are nowadays noted. All traffic is recorded and databases are compiled with the aid of artificial intelligence. Information is gathered from every quarter and information is power. Big Brother has access to it and you do not.

Not so long ago AI struggled to beat grand masters at chess. Now they can teach themselves how to play then beat several of the best in the world at once. Artificial intelligence needs no sleep, eats nothing but electricity, cannot forget and will not forgive. Surveillance cameras multiply faster than cancer cells in a petri dish. Smart devices from phones to freezers are gathering data. Your TV and computer watch and listen. Your retail purchases, your bank card transactions, the questions you ask your smart device are all stored, all processed. All provide pieces of the jigsaw which is you. In today’s dystopian inversion of society, every citizen is a suspect and ‘anything you say can, and will, be used against you’ and not necessarily in any court of law. In this fourth industrial revolution, any information that travel through the world wide web is monitored and stored. How many will be caught in that web for the spider of Big Brother to devour? Information is the new currency and personal information has the greatest value. The massive profits made by Facebook are obtained exclusively through the selling of information. People are their stock, and their stockyards are the world.

I tried to contact my bank but there was no email address on their website. There was though one of those email forms where you list all your personal information then are given a box that can contain up to 500 characters to actually state what you want to say. I played the game until I reached the second to last box, the one just before assuring them that I am not a robot. Call me weird if you like, plenty have, but I take umbrage at having to assure their robot that I am not one. If I did not agree to their privacy policy their robot would not allow me to continue. Of course, like the vast majority of non-robots, I had no idea what their privacy policy is, unlike the vast majority who, in the interests of time and convenience, just check the box and move along. I read the policy. The following was nestled a few paragraphs in: ‘By using or accessing any of our products or services or otherwise providing us with your personal information you authorise us to collect, store, use and disclose your personal information in accordance with our Privacy Notice’.

Contrary to Judith Collins' rationale that 'if you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear', privacy is not about what we are trying to hide but about what we are trying to protect. We simply cannot trust the watchers not to use our information to our detriment.

It has been proven way beyond reasonable doubt that information is used primarily to coerce, cajole and manipulate. The only service component is as the service of a bull to a cow.

The millions of phone conversations recorded for training purposes have yet to result in better trained people or improved service. They may though have produced better trained AI. State agencies or private corporations have no business infiltrating our private lives but more and more they do so. It has been done quietly, stealthily. Has big brother gone to all this trouble to better understand you? The answer must be yes. Will this understanding be used to help you or to control you? If it were the former it would be the first time in history that this is so. What are the chances.

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