China Goes '1984' While America Goes 'Brave New World'--But What's Next?

Many social critics and observers have argued in recent decades that the Orwellian notion of a dystopian, "Big Brother is watching you" future was a false alarm. A New York Times report details how Chinese authorities are using cutting-edge technology to increasingly keep tabs on their citizens, in order to nab drug smugglers and murder suspects and even to publicly shame inconsiderate jay-walkers. "With millions of cameras and billions of lines of code, China is building a high-tech authoritarian future," the Times' technology correspondent Paul Mozur wrote. "Beijing is embracing technologies like facial recognition and artificial intelligence to identify and track 1.4 billion people. It wants to assemble a vast and unprecedented national surveillance system, with crucial help from its thriving technology industry."