I am sympathetic to this, but the alternative is to let Google do it instead. Most people are still mistrustfully eyeing governments, which in democratic countries have at least taken some effort to set up checks and balances and means of scrutiny. In the meantime, large tech corporations have been amassing citizen data in a far more holistic, real time tracking manner than any government department, and are now in a position to influence urban planning and workplace norms to suit their business plans. None of this seems to inspire any scrutiny on the right in the same way concern about government overreach historically concerned both right and left. I am still trying to work out why.
It seems most likely we'll get the worst of both worlds: government control facilitated by partnerships with big tech companies that shield them from the checks and balances built into our democracy. Exhibit A: Sidewalk Labs (an Alphabet company) and those LinkNYC wifi & phone charging terminals that record everything going on around them, ostensibly for "anti-terrorism" purposes. The government doesn't have the resources or technical expertise to effectively monitor people the way they want to but big tech companies do and they're happy to accept government money. Our government surveillance apparatus is already heavily integrated with companies like Google and Meta in ways most people can't even imagine. Google Maps was originally a startup funded by In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital firm (yes that is a real thing). The more you learn about this stuff the more you realize that we're already living in this exact dystopia, it's just not widely acknowledged yet, probably because the powers that be don't quite understand how to use all that data effectively for coercion (yet).
I am sympathetic to this, but the alternative is to let Google do it instead. Most people are still mistrustfully eyeing governments, which in democratic countries have at least taken some effort to set up checks and balances and means of scrutiny. In the meantime, large tech corporations have been amassing citizen data in a far more holistic, real time tracking manner than any government department, and are now in a position to influence urban planning and workplace norms to suit their business plans. None of this seems to inspire any scrutiny on the right in the same way concern about government overreach historically concerned both right and left. I am still trying to work out why.
It seems most likely we'll get the worst of both worlds: government control facilitated by partnerships with big tech companies that shield them from the checks and balances built into our democracy. Exhibit A: Sidewalk Labs (an Alphabet company) and those LinkNYC wifi & phone charging terminals that record everything going on around them, ostensibly for "anti-terrorism" purposes. The government doesn't have the resources or technical expertise to effectively monitor people the way they want to but big tech companies do and they're happy to accept government money. Our government surveillance apparatus is already heavily integrated with companies like Google and Meta in ways most people can't even imagine. Google Maps was originally a startup funded by In-Q-Tel, the CIA's venture capital firm (yes that is a real thing). The more you learn about this stuff the more you realize that we're already living in this exact dystopia, it's just not widely acknowledged yet, probably because the powers that be don't quite understand how to use all that data effectively for coercion (yet).