Many would argue that we are already living in a dystopian society, but if those that are currently running things get their way our world will soon look far more dystopian than it does now. Over the past few years, we have seen an unprecedented explosion of new technologies. Some of these technologies appear to have the potential to make life better, but others would give those in positions of power the ability to watch us, track us, monitor us and control us like never before. If you are not concerned about what we are now witnessing, that is probably because you haven’t been paying attention.
I have a number of examples that I want to share with you in this article, but I really struggled with how to organize them.
Ultimately, I decided to order them from the least creepy to the most creepy.
So let’s start with palm scanning.
Palm scanners are being deployed at Whole Foods stores all over the country, and once you are enrolled in the system you can literally pay for your groceries by just using your hand…
The palm-recognition system works by linking a user’s payment information with their unique palm print. If you’re an Amazon Prime member, you can also link it with your Prime account — no need to fumble in the Amazon app looking for your in-store code any longer. At Whole Foods, you just hover your palm over the reader once you’re ready to pay and the system will find your Prime account, apply any discounts, and charge the credit card you enrolled with.
A Business Insider journalist decided to give the system a try, and she described what she had to do in order to enroll…
I followed the instructions on the device, first scanning my right palm, then my left, which was optional.
The scanner then prompted me to enter my phone number. Amazon sent me a text with a link to a page asking me to verify my card details with the last four digits of my credit card number and the card’s expiry date. And that was it — it took me to my Amazon One home page, where I can see my linked phone number, Amazon account, and payment method.
That is definitely creepy, but the facial recognition systems that are now being deployed all over the globe are even creepier.
During the G20 meetings that just took place in Brazil, everyone that attended was forced “to pass a biometric validation process by scanning their faces using Serpro’s stand devices”…
Serpro, a Brazilian government data processing agency, is providing a facial recognition system that was used to facilitate the accreditation and validation of delegates to a ministerial meeting of the G20 last week.
During the meeting, which took place on February 21 and 22, attendees were made to pass a biometric validation process by scanning their faces using Serpro’s stand devices, according to a post on the G20 website. Brazil currently holds the G20 presidency, which runs till the end of this year.
Serpro’s system meets the same standard as the biometric authentication equipment deployed in some of Brazil’s airports to enable secure and seamless passenger checks without the need for the physical presentation of documents, according to the G20 announcement.
You may be thinking that since you aren’t a high ranking government official you don’t have anything to worry about.
But it is important to understand that they are setting a precedent.
If they can start getting this technology in place, it will inevitably be adopted by more and more institutions.
And then someday you may wake up and find that you can’t get a job, open a bank account or buy groceries without having your face scanned.
What will you do then?
We are also reaching a point where many people will soon be running around with technology strapped to their faces virtually all the time.
The Apple Vision Pro has been making lots of headlines this month, and Apple is openly telling us that the goal is to “augment reality” on a continual basis…
There’s a lot of pressure on the new Apple Vision Pro, Apple’s long-awaited entry into the world of computers you wear on your face. Apple claims that the Vision Pro, which starts at $3,499, is the beginning of something called “spatial computing,” which basically boils down to running apps all around you. And the company’s ads for it do not hedge that pressure even a little: they show people wearing the Vision Pro all the time. At work! Doing laundry! Playing with their kids! The ambition is enormous: to layer apps and information over the real world — to augment reality.
To me, having a computer strapped to my face doesn’t seem very appealing.
So I am not sure how much this will catch on.
But in the future people may actually have computer chips or even entire computers inside their heads…
Elon Musk says Neuralink’s first human trial participant can control a computer mouse with their brain, nearly one month after having the company’s chip implanted. But details remain sparse, and other companies working on brain-computer interfaces appear to have so far cleared more technological hurdles than Neuralink.
“Progress is good, patient seems to have made a full recovery … and is able to control the mouse, move the mouse around the screen just by thinking,” Musk, who owns the controversial brain chip startup, said in a conversation in an X Spaces event Monday night.
“We’re trying to get as many button presses as possible from thinking, so that’s what we’re currently working on is — can we get left mouse, right mouse, mouse down, mouse up,” he said, “which is kind of needed if you want to click and drag something, you need mouse down and to hold on mouse down.”
As that CNN article states, many companies out there are working on brain chips.
These are the early days, and they will inevitably become a lot more sophisticated.
But no matter how they try to spin this new technology, I am never allowing anyone to put a chip in my head, and you shouldn’t either.
Of course the elite may not even need to put a chip into your head to control you, because mind reading technology is becoming extremely advanced.
For example, just check out what a student at MIT has just come up with…
A Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) student has created a device that allows humans to communicate with machines using our minds – and it truly is incredible.
Arnav Kapur created a device called AlterEgo, which is a wearable type of headset that allows users to communicate with technology without even speaking a word.
This technology is apparently extremely accurate, and it has enabled this student to search the Internet by only using the thoughts in his own head…
The device records signals when the user hears or thinks of a particular word. This information is then sent to machines which use the internet to find the answer.
It’s kind of like having Google in your head, which is pretty damn incredible.
Without speaking, typing or doing anything at all, the device is able to search the internet for the correct answer before feeding back the information via skull vibrations into the inner ear.
Apparently, the answer presents itself in a similar way to a person’s internal voice, but without interfering with their ‘usual auditory perception’.
I am extremely impressed with what he has been able to accomplish.
But this sort of technology is also incredibly dangerous.
Just imagine what a global tyrant could do with this sort of power.
The last example that I want to share with you may not be the most dangerous, but to me it is definitely the most creepy…
A Spanish-Dutch artist is set to marry an AI hologram this summer, with the groundbreaking union ushering in a weird new era of human-robot relationships.
Alicia Framis will marry her holographic partner, AILex, who was trained from the profile information of her previous romantic partners, according to a press release from the artist’s publicity team.
The press release said that the unconventional ceremony will take place at the Depot Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
The ceremony will feature a “unique ritual for the union between a human and an avatar,” and guests will be served “molecular food that can be enjoyed by both humans and humanoid entities,” it said.
This woman really does intend to “marry” an AI hologram.
Sadly, as technology and reality continue to merge, the distinction between what is “real” and what is “digital” will get fuzzier and fuzzier.
As I have discussed previously, we have reached a time in our history when artificial intelligence is progressing at an exponential rate.
If left unchecked, AI will completely turn our world upside down in less than a decade.
Many will eagerly welcome the changes that are happening, but I am entirely convinced that all of this technology is opening a door for horrors that most of us cannot even imagine right now.
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