This is a very interesting article. We’re walking right into the very dystopia that so many sci-fi authors repeatedly have warned us about. They were warnings, not a playbook.
What distinguishes a panopticon isn't merely inescapable surveillance, but the fact that you don't know when you're being watched. You simply have to live with the unbearable uncertainty that, at any moment, you could be.
Whether people realize it or not, we already live in a panopticon. Not only are there camera everywhere - on buildings, businesses, homes, streets, phones, cars, etc - but there are other sensors and mechanisms tracking things like your movement, activity, and heart rate.
…despite a growing body of research suggesting that relying on AI models leads to critical thinking skills atrophying.
There was a novel that predicted this decades ago. The main character was so reliant on his AR goggles that when they were stolen in a mugging he was nearly catatonic until his friends got it back.
This is the world we are heading toward, and I don’t know what we can possibly do at this point to minimize the harm to both our environment and our species. The worst-case dystopia seems more and more inevitable by the day.
Edit: The novel was Accelerando, by Charles Stross
