By Futurist Thomas Frey
The World Where Criminals Can’t Hide
Imagine this scenario: A crime is committed. Within minutes, AI systems have already reconstructed what happened from seventeen different camera angles. The victim’s smartwatch recorded the attack. Their phone’s accelerometer captured the fall. Dashcams from passing cars documented the perpetrator’s arrival and escape. Facial recognition tracked their journey home. DNA databases connected the physical evidence before investigators even arrive at the scene.
The entire crime is solved before the investigation begins.
This isn’t science fiction set decades in the future. The technology exists today. We’re simply negotiating how much of it we’re willing to deploy and how tightly we’re willing to integrate it. Every smartphone is a recording device. Every doorbell can be a camera. Every transaction leaves a digital trail. Every movement can be tracked. The infrastructure for total surveillance is already being built, one Ring doorbell and Tesla dashcam at a time.
What happens when that infrastructure becomes complete? When every surface has cameras, every device records, every transaction is logged, and AI systems weave it all into a seamless, searchable record of human activity?
The answer is both seductive and terrifying: crime becomes functionally impossible. And we need to think very carefully about whether that’s actually what we want.
Continue reading… “The Crime-Free Future Nobody Wants: What Happens When Privacy Becomes Technologically Impossible”