Anyone who has watched it probably remembers that episode of Black Mirror where people rate each other and everyone tries to improve their score, likes and popularity.
The heroine would like to reach a number of points that would allow her to buy her dream house. Currently, she does not have enough points to qualify for the purchase. She is not eligible. Then a friend who is much more popular than she is, invites her to her wedding, which she imagines will enable her to quickly increase her score. Of course, nothing goes as planned. She keeps losing points during her trip, which complicates her life, preventing her from renting the car she wants, etc., and, after much unpleasantness, she ends up in jail.
So let's reassure ourselves as best we can: Black Mirror is a series of “dystopian” episodes, it's fiction. Well, except that this one isn't exactly that anymore. Have you ever heard of the social credit system? No? The Chinese know about it. It's quite similar to this episode. Basically, they have set up a whole interconnected system that brings together a large number of surveillance cameras (one for every two inhabitants), your smartphone, your bank account, your biometric data, your medical records, etc. The official aim is to make society safer and help each citizen improve their social behavior. This obviously involves interactions with others (you hail a cab, at the end of the ride you rate it and... the driver rates you as a customer!), but also your behavior on the road (including pedestrians), your way of educating yourself, eating... in short, practically every aspect of life is concerned.
Big Bro... uh... data!
It's the famous Big Data that we keep hearing about, but in action. This huge collection of data, identity, mobility, behavior, health, habits, possessions, purchases, relationships, etc. is used to constantly monitor each individual as well as the population as a whole. Each person has a score that places them in one of four categories of citizens. Each category has more or fewer opportunities, advantages and privileges, or, on the contrary, is subject to limitations, constraints and prohibitions. This affects your ability to obtain a loan or a visa, to be admitted into a hospital or a hotel without having to pay a deposit, to obtain discounts on public transport, to benefit from certain services, etc.
The social credit system works because it combines several things: mass control from above, people controlling each other and a certain amount of self-censorship and conditioning. For example, the government promotes the adoption of a healthy lifestyle in which everyone must do what they can to stay healthy. For your part, you go and visit a neighborhood or attend a show. When choosing a drink or snack, you will have an organic tea instead of a soda and a cereal bar instead of something super sweet and fatty. This way you will earn points in the long term. You will even kill two birds with one stone because, by buying your snack, you are participating in the country's economic growth. Don't have any change? Never mind, it no longer exists! No credit card either? Never mind, the drinks dispenser has facial-recognition technology! You just have to stand in front of the camera and hey presto, payment is made!
As the video (sorry it's gone private since) clearly shows, a game is being played. The rules of the game are set at the top. Cash is no longer used, it is replaced by points. The digital (and therefore supposedly neutral) referee is ready: cameras, servers, interconnections, etc. All the citizen has to do now is to become the player of his own life, adopt the right behavior, earn points, improve his level and everything will be fine for him. He literally plays his life. But beware, there are not several lives in this game, you only got one. And this system pushes us to live it either as a pawn, a cog, or as an outsider, outside the game, with all the risks of social, or even physical, death that this implies. It makes sense, after all, the outsider is useless in this system.
A virtual duplicate of the entire society has been applied to the “real” society, of flesh and blood, and has contaminated (inseminated?) it, becoming an essential cog in this 2.0 society, which resembles the loyalty program of a mass retailer with the smartphone as its taskmaster.
Not here?
You are no doubt thinking that our laws protect us from this kind of thing, and so far, this is almost the case. Our laws are slowing down this progression. But you need to know that social credit, Chinese style, originated in the USA. There, it was used “only” to establish your financial reliability, in the case of setting up a business, applying for a loan or other transaction, and was in principle only accessible to financial institutions.
But on second thought, we too rate. Who has never thumbs-uped on social networks, chosen a number of stars to rate a delivery (On time? Well packaged? Works as expected, etc.), or smiley faces to rate the cleanliness of toilets on the highway, at an airport or whatever? And haven't speed cameras on the roads, combined with the points system for driving licenses, already played this role of regulating behavior for the vast majority of drivers? So yeah, we're not safe! Not at all!
Because once again, they're bringing it to you quietly, through comfort and security. No more cash? No more snatch thefts! Did you forget everything at home? You can pay for everything with your smiling face! Are you meeting people? Everyone will be nice so as not to risk a bad rating. Too great, isn't it? Except that it's all fake and you know it. You have traded the sincerity of human relationships for a feeling of security, thanks to a digital house of cards that has no legitimacy other than coercion. As already mentioned, comfort makes you stupid And even very stupid!
While all these things are spinning around in my head, I come across a report about cars: I learn that a French insurance company proposes to place a chip on your diagnostic plug that will record all your interactions with the vehicle, accelerations, braking, speed, etc. If you adopt a smooth driving style, if you anticipate braking, in short if you drive very gently, you can save up to 30 or 40% on your insurance premiums. Also in France, a company has equipped its entire fleet with a similar device and rewards virtuous drivers with vouchers. And it works! In the report, a woman complains about roadworks that force her to brake more abruptly than she would like, which means she risks missing out on her discounts. Is it a nightmare? No, we're already ready! Already well trained! And if we continue on our current path, we will join the Chinese and others people in this “ideal society”.
Oh, and I almost forgot: did you know the announcement was made that there would be widespread facial recognition during the 2024 Paris Olympics? Well, no... Then it turned out that there would be a “facial recognition trial” to validate its use in the long term. So there will be widespread facial recognition: everyone who enters the monitored areas will be subject to the system's algorithms. I know what you're thinking: “Oh well, if they're only doing experiments now, there's still time...”
BIG MISTAKE !!!
In fact, multiple unofficial, and therefore illegal, experiments have been conducted since 2015 by various public and private organizations (administrations, cities, sensitive sites, etc.). They are, apparently, conclusive. In what way? How? Why? Con-clu-sive, we tell you! OK? The problem is that, for the moment, they are completely illegal, so the games are going to give it all a good shot of respectability.
Following on from the above: the technology is ready, it is already in place and functional! The only thing missing is the legal green light. The guys are in the starting blocks. So of course, to convince the masses, the first step is to convoke potential terrorists, then women who are the victims of eviction orders that are not respected by their violent partners, old ladies who have been attacked at cash dispensers, etc. But it is the same drift towards a surveillance society, and we know that surveillance ends up destroying society, reducing it to empty gestures, without any vision or purpose other than surveillance itself.
Democracy and our laws will not protect us. They will just slow down the process. Because democracy, dictatorship or anything in between, what regime does not dream of a system that guarantees social peace? A system in which the individual, monitored, tracked, evaluated, contributes of his own initiative, by flashing QR codes, by restricting himself or adopting the desired behavior, to this absurd march doomed to end in the wall, of which we are the witnesses (actors?). And for the few exceptions that slip through the net, there is always good old denunciation, which is always effective and... rewarded... with points! It doesn't cost anything extra! What a hoot!
Wesh Bro !
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