“Opt-In Surveillance Is Approaching” by Steven Veld

In 2017, Western media outlets warned that “Black Mirror is coming true in China.” The following year, Mike Pence claimed that “China's rulers aim to implement an Orwellian system premised on controlling virtually every facet of human life—the so-called ‘Social Credit Score.’” So far, the CCP's attempts at nationalized social scoring have remained fragmented and crude, largely due to difficulties in analyzing population-scale data. However, AI could soon lift that bottleneck, independently sifting through information and pulling out the most important details about every individual. This unsettling prospect might renew fears about top-down social scoring by governments. However, an equally pressing concern is the potential for a bottom-up system, in which citizens choose to be surveilled and scored by AIs. As people integrate AIs into their lives to get more useful assistance with daily tasks, those AIs may soon be able to generate credible character assessments at the touch of a button. Early users who receive positive AI assessments may choose to share them with colleagues, businesses, bureaucrats, and so forth, in order to receive more favorable treatment. This dynamic would create an incentive for everyone else to follow suit. This essay will explore why people will give AI [...] ---Outline:(01:43) The Pressures Driving Self-Imposed Surveillance(05:36) The Evolution of Self-Imposed Surveillance(10:23) Surveillance at the Civilizational Level(11:24) Conclusion --- First published: June 3rd, 2026 Source: https://aifrontiersmedia.substack.com/p/opt-in-surveillance-is-approaching --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO. ---Images from the article:Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.