THE CREEPY EYE
Ubiquitous technology
The cleaning crew sits in their vehicle at Noon— lunch time. We ask them to come in from the brutal heat of our summer. Their company does not allow it, and they are surveilled by the camera inside their vehicle.
What are the workers thinking about? They spend each day in drudgery— cleaning up our homes. Were the events that led them into this seemingly thankless occupation to build their “American Dream” economic or political?
Work is honorable— it dignifies the human being. But today the company added “body cameras” as “quality control” measures to surveil their work— a demeaning policy implying no trust in their labor as human beings.
Are we trading human values away via technological intrusion?
Is technology serving humanity or are we serving technology?
Our city now allows driverless rides. How do the displaced drivers earn a living?
A local restaurant has robots that bring food to the table— cute. What happened to those who formerly waited on tables?
X-rays and laboratory tests are read and interpreted by robots. Primary physicians are becoming help desks directing us to specialists. The human touch that brings comfort is evaporating before our eyes.
Do we want the cold touch of technology or the warm touch and smile of a human being when we are sick, or awaiting death, when spiritual comfort and reassurance are of paramount importance?
Now technology is creeping into the technology centers, displacing the technologists, engineers and researchers that created it— poetic justice?
We are fascinated by AI search engines, systems and robots that appear to be under our control. Are the algorithms in those systems populated with the ideology of the industrialists that fund their development? Who reaps the benefits from a reduced workforce?
I am not anti-technology. I appreciate laparoscopic surgery, colonoscopy, camera inspection of my plumbing system, (body and household). I appreciate cameras and robots that can approach toxic, hazardous environments that are lethal to humans. But are we unconsciously becoming lemmings responding to the beckoning cliff of our oblivion?
We see so-called smart bombs in use, and military drones with built-in targeting decision-making algorithms that can wipe out civilians and terrorist without distinction.
Then the latest message from the cleaning company, “We have a new quality control system; your cleaning team will wear cameras as they clean— we will not record your home contents only their cleaning activity and if you do not want the cameras, they will not be used.”
The default is to have cameras surveilling the workers— human beings with names, families, loved ones, at the bottom rung of the economic ladder. Those who make a living cleaning up our homes will now be under surveillance— humans at the service of technology. I am incredibly upset— nay, outraged.
My wife and I responded to the message in unison: NO CAMERAS.
Are we promoting the supremacy of heartless technology over humanity?
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Vote— your life depends on it.
I think the answer is what you and your wife said, no cameras! I refuse to use services that eliminate the human touch. Don’t go to the restaurant that has only robots serving. Use driving services that have actual humans driving. The list continues. I avoid AI always, I have disabled it on my phone and my laptop. Once upon a time in the not too distant past, we did just fine without all of this “help.”
Maybe fire that cleaning service and hire an independent cleaner whom you can invite in for lunch and whose pay doesn’t go to a clearly creepy corporate overlord.