We have all heard the rumors that Pokemon GO is a surveillance device used by the government to collect data from us. Well, Oliver Stone is warning just that. He claims that the Pokemon game is collecting our data in a step towards a totalitarian society.
According to Minds.com,
Director and privacy activist, Oliver Stone, has called out Pokemon Go as a “new level of invasion” and suggests that giving away our data so willingly is a step towards totalitarianism.
“The profits are enormous here for places like Google,” he says. “They’ve invested a huge amount of money in data mining what you are buying, what you like, your behaviour.
“It’s what some people call surveillance capitalism.”
He added: “You’ll see a new form of, frankly, a robot society. It’s what they call totalitarianism.”
His statements are foreboding. It is true that we are automating, as a society, bringing about the advent of self-driving cars and so many other artificially intelligent venues of robot life. From robot street cleaners, to robot law enforcement, to robot builders and even one robot lawyer that forgave $160,000 in parking ticket debt to people, we are quickly approaching a fully connected society.
If “fully connected” means we have no privacy, we are, perhaps, headed in the wrong direction. Privacy is a natural state of humanity; it is with it that we develop our thoughts and foment rebellion toward old practices. Of course, being connected is as important, but neither is more. The self cannot exist without the group and the group cannot exist without the self; nurture both. Heed Stone’s warning.
While Pokemon GO does use the GPS in our phones and could possibly be using that data for an ulterior motive, we have always had GPS in our phones and used location monitoring apps before the game was created. What do you think about Stone’s claims? Anything is possible.