Tech, crime and anime

Yesterday we had a conversation in class about the ethical implications of new advanced technology. One of them was about how biotech/data mining could influence crime and how citizens are monitored or deemed to be criminal.

At first glance a totally immersive and all-present network that can track and record all of your personal data could seem quite useful. For example, your medical records would be instantaneously available to all of your doctors, no more need to call on the phone and maybe get them faxed! You could scan the barcode in your arm and never lose another debit card. Police would be monitored without exception or the ability to turn off body cams. Not so bad, right? These things could potentially make things more convenient, accessible, safe and fair for everyone- there would be no more personal bias if a program were to decide your level of criminality based on a variety of factors… Or maybe not.

I brought up the anime Psycho-pass as an example of this kind of world. In the show, Japan is a utopian society run by an entity called “the sybil system”. It has access to all user information whether it be social, financial, medical..etc. and generates a “crime coefficient” to measure each persons individual level of stress or how at risk they are for committing a crime. The show explores themes talked about in a wide range of books [that the show name drops quite frequently] ranging from George Orwell’s 1984 to Michel Foucault’s Discipline and Punishment to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil. Notably, this reading list deals with themes of society, the nature of evil and how it is defined and perpetuated either by individuals or society itself. It’s a great watch and a great way to start conversations on the ethical fallout such advanced technology could bring.

While income inequality doesn’t seem to be an issue in Psycho-pass, it is a very real one around the world. Let’s say our hypothetical “crime coefficients” used your income or class status as a determining factor for crime [much like it is already used] and your friends social and financial statuses as well. You’d all end up with low scores by virtue of growing up with less money around other people with less money. That’s not fair at all. And before we move on and breathe a sigh of relief that this is just something that might happen in an anime, it actually has the potential of becoming a very real thing.

According to this article published by the BBC last year, China is working on a social credit system called “citizen score”. It is currently being piloted by 8 Chinese companies including Sesame credit, which is owned by Alibaba and Baihe. The system is used to rate a citizens “trustworthiness”, beta users are encouraged to brag about and share their scores online. While what exactly these scores are based on is unknown, there are rumors that users social media is monitored for dissenting or unpopular opinions of the government. An official statement from Sesame Credit’s spokeswoman, Miranda Shek says “financial and consumption activities of our users, and materials published on social media platforms do not affect our users’ personal Sesame Credit score.”

While social media and personal opinions may not affect citizen scores, buying habits do, as well as whether citizens have paid traffic tickets, rightfully earned their academic degrees or even taken birth control. Also according to BBC there is a list of certain professions that will be more heavily scrutinized, including doctors, vets, journalists and teachers.

All in all, there seems to be mixed reviews about the sesame credit score system, with many young people feeling it is useful and exciting and critics warning against it’s dystopian roots. Only time will tell how this real-life Psycho-pass will turn out, but for now it seems to be serving as an important way for people to feel safe and as an important example of emerging interfaces in technology.

BBC Article: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-34592186

A very good analysis of the philosophies behind Psycho-pass: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/feature/2015-06-12/the-literary-secrets-of-psycho-pass/.89123