Week 1

"Orwell's 'Big Brother' is already in millions of homes. Her name is Alexa"

 This article resonated with me because my house is filled with Alexas, controlling our lights, music, alarms, garage, and more. I'm less shocked by how much I'm monitored than by how comfortable I've become with it. In the article, a subject explains how at first, he felt uncomfortable by Google Home, and how actively it was listening, but within days he completely forgot. The normalization of always being listened to by a robot is alarming, we have been trading safety for convenience. 

It also made me question who actually has access to all this data. We're told that devices like Alexa or Google Home, only "wake" with a keyword, but what are they doing while they're listening for it? With my home run by Alexa, could even something like my thermostat data end up in the hands of corporations or hackers without me knowing? This isn't a new thought of mine, but it's striking how little concern I have over it, similar to much of society

It is nothing new that society today loves convenience. Life gets busy, and if there is a product that can make things just slightly easier, people will buy it. If our willingness to be monitored grows just because a device makes things easier, how much privacy do we have left?

"How the US Is Turning Into a Mass Techno-Surveillance State"

Surveillance has become increasingly normalized. Things like license-plate readers now feel like everyday tools. We are seeing it more and more where we give up privacy for products that make everyday tasks more efficient. We all know we're being watched, but few of us grasp how sever it really is. I always find myself skipping through terms and conditions, not paying any mind to who I am giving my data to. 

Companies like Anduril and Palantir are especially alarming, and what's more unsettling is knowing they're just two among many others operating in much the same way. These firms profit by designing systems that track people's everyday life, monitoring their habits and emotions. But to what end? When surveillance is turned into a business, who is it truly benefiting? It's marketed to benefit the public good, but behind the scenes, who is being protected?

I always assumed everyone was equally being monitored, and we all accepted it. But I was struck by how the systems target immigrants and marginalized groups first. It is easy to see how the public may accept this when it is marketed as border control, but is that the truth? Over time, tools like this rarely stay contained. Although it may have been introduced as being built for "others", it's only a few years before it grows into monitoring society as a whole.