Recently, in my English class, we held a “Tech Talk”. It was similar to a TED talk but centered around the theme of technology to go along with the current book we are reading, 1984 by George Orwell.
In 1984, the use of technology to monitor people’s lives is constantly referenced. The Party goes to extremes to make sure they always have eyes on their people. In Chapter five on page 62 Orwell states “It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself – anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide.” The technology of the Party was extremely advanced and was very invasive.
The Party uses the information as a control mechanism. Therefore, they are using the information for selfish reasons. To them, its not about helping the community, but rather creating a complete totalitarian government. However, if used properly, a surveillance system has potential benefits. For example, preventing acts of terrorism.
We introduced a television series called Person of Interest, which centers around the operation of a large surveillance machine to prevent all types of crimes. Based on the article we had the class read, highly advanced surveillance is not far off from being a reality. So, my partner and I asked the class how we can prevent information from technologies like these from getting into the wrong hands. We had the class discuss in small groups and then share with the class. A member of one group suggested to, “Make a finger scanning system. It’s really the only practical way to prevent the information getting into the wrong hands because something like a password could easily get out” in which another student chimed in, “Oh yeah! Like Disney!” The class agreed that this seemed to be the best solution if there were also additional ways to reinforce the security of the finger print system.
Having the class split into smaller groups and then share after discussing with their group was something that worked really well. We seemed to get more responses and more of a conversation going than when the question was posed to the whole class and individuals were asked to speak out. People seem much more willing to share once they have discussed their ideas with another persons because it allows them to make their thought more coherent.
One criticism I have of our presentation was that there a bit too much dead space. In order to have prevented this, my partner and I should have created some more detailed follow up questions to prompt more responses from our classmates. Aside from this one downfall, the presentation went smoothly and the class seemed to be interested in the advanced technology that the show focused on.
This article is an interview of the producer of Person of Interest, Johnathan Nolan, about where he got his inspiration for the show. What he said was that it was mainly based on real research that has been going on. A way we could have made our presentation stronger would have been to do some more in detail research about the advancements being made in creating a high surveillance machine. We did some research regarding this, but didn’t dive into all the specifics. For example, we could have talked about things like the Amazon Alexa. Since Alexa is always recording waiting for her name to be called, she could potentially help to solve crimes if authorities were allowed to access her stored recordings and listen to the footage from the specific time that a crime was committed. Maybe she could even help to detect clues that a crime will happen before it does, just as the machine does in the show.
Adding new information from other sources also would have helped make our article more reliable. Our article was an opinion from an interview, so finding examples of how a technology like the machine is becoming a reality would have helped give our source and the words of the producer more credibility.
Overall, I felt that our presentation went smoothly and I was happy with the outcome of responses we got.
Works Cited
McCarthy, Erin. “The Creepy Spy Tech of Person of Interest.” Popular Mechanics, Popular Mechanics, 15 Feb. 2018, http://www.popularmechanics.com/culture/tv/a7249/the-creepy-surveillance-tech-of-person-of-interest-6499803/. This article is an interview of the producer of Person of Interest, Johnathan Nolan, about where he got his inspiration for the show. What he said was that it was mainly based on real research that has been going on. It was very helpful in realizing that a type of surveillance system like this is not too far away.
Nolan, Johnathan. “Ghosts.” Person of Interest, season One, episode Two, 2011. This show centers around the creation of a machine that is used to detect acts of crime. Throughout the show lives of innocents are saved as a result of the machine giving out the social security numbers of people who might be involved in these terrible crimes.
Orwell, George, and Erich Fromm. 1984: a Novel. Signet Classics, 2017. This book highlights the role of a society that is watched all the time. It clearly shows the dangers of people with too much power getting their hands on valuable information.
Kate's Corner 
I really enjoyed your post and you view on person of interest! It’s a show I used to watch a lot! One thing that came up in my class was the discussion of laws that are already set up in our country that allow surveillance technology to catch criminals. This brought up the question of how has the rights to privacy? and if you unlawfully catch a criminal do you have the right to punish them?
LikeLike