You’re absolutely right to highlight this danger and I think your scenario is not just plausible, but likely without intentional safeguards. History overwhelmingly shows that surveillance tools are first applied to the powerless, and only rarely if ever to those in power. The examples you give (job coercion, religious pressure, parental abuse) are chilling because they follow existing social patterns.
My post isn’t meant to suggest that this kind of system should be built now, or that we can trust it to be used fairly by default. Instead, I’m trying to explore the uncomfortable possibility that such technology might become inevitable not because it’s ideal, but because it emerges out of escalating demand for justice, transparency, or control.
If that future arrives, we’ll face a fork in the road:
One path leads to exactly what you describe: an oppressive, asymmetrical use of power cloaked in “consent.”
The other much harder path would require designing systems where those in power are monitored first and most strictly, under rules they can’t tamper with.
I’m not claiming that’s easy or even likely. I’m only arguing that if this future is coming, we should start defining how to resist its default dystopia and imagine better uses before someone else builds it without asking.
The other much harder path would require designing systems where those in power are monitored first and most strictly, under rules they can’t tamper with.
Who monitors the monitors? Who decides the decision rules?
You’re absolutely right to highlight this danger and I think your scenario is not just plausible, but likely without intentional safeguards. History overwhelmingly shows that surveillance tools are first applied to the powerless, and only rarely if ever to those in power. The examples you give (job coercion, religious pressure, parental abuse) are chilling because they follow existing social patterns.
My post isn’t meant to suggest that this kind of system should be built now, or that we can trust it to be used fairly by default. Instead, I’m trying to explore the uncomfortable possibility that such technology might become inevitable not because it’s ideal, but because it emerges out of escalating demand for justice, transparency, or control.
If that future arrives, we’ll face a fork in the road:
One path leads to exactly what you describe: an oppressive, asymmetrical use of power cloaked in “consent.”
The other much harder path would require designing systems where those in power are monitored first and most strictly, under rules they can’t tamper with.
I’m not claiming that’s easy or even likely. I’m only arguing that if this future is coming, we should start defining how to resist its default dystopia and imagine better uses before someone else builds it without asking.
Who monitors the monitors? Who decides the decision rules?