In today's episode of America's Crazy, please note that American schools now force you to get a digital hall pass to go to the toilet. What does this mean, and why do I care enough to write an article about it?
When I first heard about these kinds of things, I immediately thought of Gilles Deleuze's "Postscript on the Societies Of Control". Because, we are heading to a society of control. But I want to stay with the digital bloody hall pass for just a little longer.
Surveillance
Life was perfectly fine, without having a server record when you go to the bathroom. Without a server calculating if you, perhaps, take longer than usual. Without a server detecting patterns in your dumps.
But then, someone had to make more money. Hence, said server now exists. Hence, teachers now get to track when you go to the loo. Hence, teachers can now do a lot of horrible things which I won't even take the time to write about.
This is not the worst yet.
Furthermore, this contributes to the rising acceptance of surveillance. 1984 is becoming more real everyday and we don't even notice it. Social media knows our deepest desires. Everything we write - including this blog post - is used to train AI models. Our faces are stored, so we can be identified when protesting against the government. In the United Kingdom you have to upload your ID to watch porn. Think of that. How little self-respect does one need to upload their ID to watch porn? So, what happens is, with this normalization, you get accustomed to the idea of not keeping secrets from the authorities / the spooks. Are you really keeping secrets? No! They shouldn't know everything. But knowing everything is but a step towards the real goal, which is control.
Control
At this point I suppose you should take the time to read Deleuze's essay first.
An algortihm answers the question whether one can go to the loo. If that is not Kafka, please enlighten me what is. The real idea we get accustomed to is that there is some shadow ruler, which simply decides. How's that, for the rule of law?
You don't know the algorithm. There is no dialogue with the algorithm. The computer, simply, says no. An algorithm can make choices without any transparency whatsoever. It can have rules which are in no way legal or acceptable, but it doesn't have to state them. For example, what if the algorithm was slightly modified, to reject the requests of black students a little more often. That would be bad. But you couldn't prove it. Because the algorithm is, of course, protected by copyright. Even if you could prove it, what would happen? Nothing! If someone was evil enough to put such a thing into a system, I'll be damned if they aren't evil enough to keep it in when it comes to light.
You might feel like you have the freedom, to always ask for a hall pass, with simply the click of a button. Except you do not. The algorithms decide and you do their bidding. If the algorithm says you need to jump to be allowed to the toilet, lo and behold, you'll ask the algorithm, oh but benevolent algorithm, how high should I jump for you?
And the algorithm is Big Brother
Ruler-in-shadow decides for you. But how do you know what it decides? You know, at least, for yourself to a certain degree. But for your classmates? The good thing about the rule of law, is that you have at least some certainty, on what rules are imposed on not only you, but on everyone. In the future, we simply won't know.