The Year 1984

In George Orwell’s dystopian novel, 1984, he predicts a society with immense government surveillance, where everyone is constantly being watched by a higher authoritarian figure. This fictional storyline is not too far off from China’s upcoming “social credit” system, scheduled to be implemented in 2020. As we enter a futuristic world succumbed by robots and artificial intelligence, our society is becoming more and more data driven. For our every action, our movements are already being surveilled and recorded into a database that has a complete profile of each individual. In China’s “social credit system,” each individual has a social score that is controlled by the government, and can affect their ability to buy plane/train tickets, to access the internet, to register for schools or jobs, and many other daily life interactions. This is all done in the name of a better and more civilized society. Yet, we must ask ourselves, how much control is too much control? How will this impact our daily life interactions? Do we want our government to have a record of our every action? Will this one day create a society that mimics Black Mirror’s social rating system? High-tech surveillance is an imperative topic that needs to be discussed on a global scale.

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