By Julian CribbOnline Opinion
4 September 2007
... If you walk across London today, it’s said, you can appear on TV as many as 300-400 times.
Your supermarket already knows what you eat, and your bank, what you spend and where you spend it. Your airline knows where you go and scores of commercial stickybeaks know all about your purchasing habits, especially if you are so rash as to use the Internet or a credit card.
The Australian government now takes a full genetic profile of every citizen at birth and has done for half a generation. There is actually no need for a national ID card, as your DNA has already provided your own unique barcode - one that is un-forgeable.
If you work in the public service it is probable that everything you do on your computer is being monitored - your email, your documents, your web activity, even your individual keystrokes. (A colleague once had the very disturbing experience of seeing their mouse pointer take off on its own and start opening various files.)
Even if you don’t work for the public service there is now a vast cybernetic scrutiny taking place of the use made by ordinary citizens of the Internet and email, those two underpinnings of modern civilisation.
But what resembles a boon may, in a different light, soon come to resemble a pair of manacles.
If you work in a factory, cameras and computers observe you clock on and clock off, and count the minutes between, informing the payroll office accordingly.
If you work in a call centre, not only your time but all your actions are measured, precisely timed and recorded - ostensibly “for training purposes”. In reality so you can be sacked more easily. One infraction and a truckload of data is available with which to impeach you of laziness, incompetence or inefficiency.
For the sake of public safety, we are told, road vehicles may soon carry mandatory GPS devices to control their speed in restricted zones. Of course these devices also know exactly where your vehicle is, any time, night or day.
Robot aircraft now prowl battlefields and assassinate enemy captains. Soon they will prowl cities and highways under the guise of traffic, crime or terrorism control.
You visit a new doctor and he or she will soon be able to call up your entire medical, dental and optical records on line - no matter where you were treated, for what or by whom - using new health informatics systems.
Even your home, increasingly, will know when you are there and what your are doing from your power and water use, your security sensors and other devices that may prove to be a two-edged sword, spying on their owner.
But these contemporary intrusions are nothing compared to the power which quantum computing and nanobots will shortly unleash to monitor and record each individual in an advanced society, almost every minute of their lives.
Here I refer not merely to the lightning speed, ultra-potent analytical powers and ubiquity of these emergent devices but, above all, to their phenomenal data-storage capacity. Fragments of information will be stored as atoms or even subatomic particles in an atomic lattice - the entire National Library in a matchbox.
For the first time in history it will be possible to observe any individual, cradle to grave - and even, via genetics, beyond the grave and before the womb - and file the results.
Historically, from Elizabeth 1’s Walsingham and Fouche’s secret police to the Tsar’s Okhrana, the Soviet Union’s KGB, America’s CIA and our own ASIO, the task of surveillance has been carried out imperfectly by bungling and fallible human beings. This is about to change. The task is being handed to brains that do not sleep, weary, get drunk or need to take a leak. That have almost limitless storage and data fusion capacity. That remember everything and are capable of regurgitating it, chapter and verse, in the most microscopic detail. That are capable of construing patterns of suspicion from the most innocent of incidents or a mass of unrelated sources.
For the first time in history it will soon be possible to assemble virtually the entire life of an individual, all they do and say or is done or said to them, everywhere they go, all the records and all the vision they generate - and retrieve it at need using “intelligent” computer systems rather than bored police constables.
The slaves of old enjoyed transient hours of precious freedom when they were out of the scrutiny of their overseers - locked in the barracoons at night or when unsupervised about the house or farm, perhaps.
Not so the citizen of the modern democratic state. She or he will potentially be under surveillance, one way or another, 24/7, 7/52 and 52/100.
It will be a system beyond the most megalomaniac dreams of the KGB Registry.
And it will be here within a generation.
Every monetary transaction you make.
Every genetic flaw or feature you own, including your personal smell.
Every visit to a doctor, hospital, state agency or public building. Every urban vehicle trip. Every taxi ride. Every visit to the local bottleshop or newsagent where you are watched by the unblinking eye of the security cam.
Every conversation on a phone, mobile or by radio, or meeting in a public building, government office or sporting venue.
Every document you read or write on an online computer. Every password you enter.
Where you are at almost any moment in your life. Even if you yourself have completely forgotten, the ubiquitous camera networks will be there to tell you.
Wherever you go, whatever you do, whatever you say in a public space or building can be observed, recorded, analysed, stored for future use. This is the power that will be unleashed by the colossal data storage, fusion, mining and analytic capacity of quantum computing.
For individuals who fall under suspicion this data will be enhanced by the use of nanobots, tiny autonomous surveillance devices as small as an insect or even a grain of sand, which observe and report everything that goes on. Make no mistake, they are already under development.
The public image of a gigantic “big brother” surveillance brain is a misconception. In reality the information on any individual will exist in hundreds, even thousands of separate databases, most of them owned by the private sector. But these will be searchable in microseconds by a centralised agency with the authority to do so - and a quantum computer. These are, of course, no less than the enabling technologies for the global police state, though no one is admitting as much.
In this world, one need not have committed an offence in order to be brought to heel. Perhaps just written a slightly injudicious letter to the newspaper, or passed a few unfavourable remarks about the Leader. One only needs to be played back certain excerpts of one’s life which can be interpreted as suspicious by a controlling mind.
For example: “What were you doing on July 16 on the same street as a known terrorism suspect? Don’t argue - here is the vision to prove it …”
“Between 1990 and 2025 why did you purchase from Amazon.com seven books relating to terrorism, including biographies of Che Guevara, William Tell, Robin Hood and Ned Kelly - all known terrorists and insurgents?”
“Do you admit that in the past seventeen years you have on forty-nine occasions - detailed below - purchased a total of 75 kilos of garden fertilisers and over 100 kilos of sugar with potential for bomb-making? What did you plan to do with such a huge bomb?”
Once upon a time the suspect might perhaps deny it or try to bluster. Now, confronted with kilometres, tonnes even, of accusatory detail about one’s private life - most of which has long fallen out of memory - what can one do but own up? “Yes. I’m a terrorist. I’m plotting to bring down the state. Let me give you the names of my associates.”
The subtly of this process is that it no longer need operate through brute force. The pain that can be inflicted by waterboarding or electrical shocks to the genitals is small, perhaps, in comparison to the life-long pain which can be inflicted by reconstruing an innocent person as an enemy of society - and most sensible “suspects” will quickly recognise this.
They will comply. They will obey whatever it is that the inquisitor asks of them.
This is the dawn of the nanocracy, the rule of the Dwarf Lords.
It is the tyrant’s dream come true.
It is a power that no state, nor authority and probably no big company anywhere on earth, can refuse. If one adopts it, all must. None can afford to stand outside it.
Besides, for the first time, it gives them a true method for controlling dissidents - whether in politics, society, the media or the workplace.
Each tool of control will be introduced from the best of motives - to keep us safe and healthy, to reduce crime, to improve workplace efficiency, to raise productivity, to protect the environment, to cater to our personal needs and tastes.
It is their storage, fusion, mining and synthesis which is so fearsome.
I have pondered who the Dwarf Lords really are in this scenario and I have concluded - with some dark amusement - that the real wielders of power in the nanocracy will not be the presidents, prime ministers, heads of department or corporation. Or even the chiefs of police or the intelligence services. Of necessity, these can only oversee its application and use our money to build it.
The real wielders of power will be those who run the quantum computers. These spiders at the heart of the informational web will have the dirt on everyone, the president included. They will know what he did behind the football sheds as a teenager, what he smoked at university, and how many times he drove when drunk. (Bill Clinton would never get to first base.)
Perhaps anticipating such developments, Sir Francis Bacon remarked about 500 years ago “nam et ipse scientia potestas est” - knowledge is power.
And four centuries or so later, Lord Acton capped it with the observation that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
In the wrong hands - even with benign intentions - these technologies, potentially, afford absolute power to search the lives of individuals and compel their conformity to some centrally-generated conception.
We can be reasonably certain none of the Dwarf Lords will be a statesperson or even an idealist. They will probably enjoy power for its own unalloyed delight.
Under the pretext of “keeping us safe” governments will for the first time in history have the power to watch and control each individual at almost all times.
There is no human life - not even that of Mother Theresa - that could withstand such scrutiny.
XXX
No doubt many will dismiss this as Orwellian fantasy, pointing out that 1984 didn’t come true in 1984 either. However Orwell was not writing about 1984 but rather warning of actual trends under totalitarianism in 1948. Like the Roman satirists under the Emperors he masked his critique by modifying the temporal context in which he placed it. He knew only too well the depths of human turpitude in any age, our own included.
Where Orwell’s scenario differs from mine is that his theme is based on the ultimate crime of betrayal. In the nanocracy there will be no need of traitors. We are all already betrayed by our own recorded words and deeds and associations.
And, like the observer principle in quantum physics where the mere act of observation changes the event being observed, people who know they are, or may be, under surveillance around the clock are bound to modify their natural behavior.
Let me state plainly that I do not advocate a ban or even a moratorium on nanoscience, any more that I would wish to ban physics or chemistry despite the inhuman things that can be done with them.
The problem lies not with the knowledge itself, but with how it is applied.
We have already unlocked Pandora’s nanobox, and the ills are peeping out, as well as the benefits.
However I firmly believe it is the responsibility of those who research in these areas, and especially those who govern the research, to communicate not only their immense potential for benign application - all the lives they will save and enhance - but also their equally immense potential for wicked misapplication and for the elimination of accepted freedoms.
I believe it is absolutely their responsibility to ensure that, besides doing the science, we also do the ethics. It is their further responsibility to hold dialogue with society about these new powers, how they are to be used, and how circumscribed.
It is no good waiting until the technology arrives, entrains and enchains us. It is arriving continuously. The time for such a dialogue is now. Which government, which official, which employer can resist the temptations of such power? As Juvenal, perhaps thinking of the praetorians, remarked “Quis custodet ipsos custodes?”
In the nanocracy, who will guard the Dwarf Lords? And how will they do it?
Nanoscience should proceed by informed public sanction - and public sanction arises from dialogue and mutual understanding. It also arises, rightly, from caution and from moral suasion.
The public needs not only to know about nanotechnologies, but also the many ways - good and bad - they can be used. It needs to be assured that the good ones will prevail and that strong protections against the bad are in place.
There is a further thread to my scenario I wish to explore - the potential impact of the nanocracy on human evolution.
Many people are by nature explorers of new ideas, adventurers, challengers of accepted wisdoms, reformers, liberals, researchers, creators and innovators. They have been among us since we first emerged onto the African savannah from the dying forests four million years ago. They have led every major phase of social and technological advancement since civilisation began. They are the foil to our natural conservatism and apathy.
In the nanocracy such people will be easily picked out and “discouraged”. If they are not censored by the Dwarf Lords, they will self-censor rather than invite scrutiny.
Historically, reformers and dissidents often pay a high price, from Socrates and Jesus to Galileo, Martin Luther King and Mandela. In the nanocracy they won’t be given the opportunity. They can be quietly swept up and hushed before they have a chance to cause trouble, like Soviet geneticists were under Lysenko.
A race deprived of its radicals, visionaries and adventurers is a poor sort of humanity. A lobotomised species, more like a termite mound than a society. It may be stable and industrious, but it will also be less competitive, less creative, less progressive and, as Darwin might point out, less fit for survival - because it would suppress the warning voices.
In the nanocracy, the ability to control everyone could signal a profound fork in the path of human evolution.
XXX
I have chosen to highlight one of the risks of the nanotechnologies in dystopian terms because, while we hear much about its potential benefits and wonders from its developers, we hear little objective discussion of the possible downsides and mis-applications.
Every technology ever invented has downsides. Indeed most of science today is taken up with amending the mistakes made through the use, overuse or misuse of previous technologies - as global climate change illustrates. My proposals for addressing this issue are:
all funding for nanotechnology research should carry with it an obligation to direct a proportion of the funds to ethical and sociological research into the consequences and human rights impact of the technology on society;
all institutions performing nanotechnology research should be required to enter a genuine dialogue with the public about their science and where it is leading - and to heed what they hear;
governance of nanoscience should operate under a externally-reviewed Code of Conduct which obligates those involved to take into account ethical concerns and potential for misapplication;
companies producing nano products should be legally liable for their misapplication, much more extensively than is currently the case in simple product safety;
safeguards must be put in place, urgently, regarding the use of personal data, the reasons it may be aggregated, where it may be aggregated from and who is allowed access to it. This must be totally transparent;
new human rights must be established to prevent the misuse of such data and technology; and
there should be a worldwide debate among leading lawyers, philosophers, politicians and scientists about the implications of nanoscience for the future of global and national societies, leading to new laws to circumscribe its abuse, misuse or harmful application.
No doubt many will dismiss this as colourful scaremongering.
I can only say that I remember writing my first newspaper article on greenhouse in 1976 or 77, based on a CSIRO report back then, when it was universally regarded as scaremongering. It has taken 30 years for an educated consensus to be reached around the planet, and will take at least another 20 for anything worthwhile to be done about it, and centuries for it to take effect.
If we are to anticipate the nanocracy, we don’t have 50 years. According to the best estimates, the first quantum computers will be on line in half that time and most of the basic surveillance tools are going in now.
For once, we have a clear opportunity to act in advance of a disruptive new technology, to capture its benefits and to avert or limit its dangers. For the sake of our ancient human freedoms and our right to a creative and progressive future, please let us do so.
This article is based on a paper presented at The Governance of Science and Technology, a Joint GovNet/CAPPE/UNESCO Conference on August 9-10, 2007 at the Australian National University.
http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=6323
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