Are We Already Living in 1984? AI, Surveillance & The Rise of Digital Control

Into The Desert Ideas

In 1948, George Orwell imagined a future defined by surveillance, conformity, and manipulated truth in his novel 1984. Decades later, that vision feels closer than ever.  As artificial intelligence, big tech, and algorithm-driven platforms shape what we see, think, and believe, an unsettling question emerges: are we drifting toward a modern version of Orwell’s dystopia?  In this episode of Into the Desert, we explore the growing influence of AI, the rise of digital surveillance, and how technology may be reshaping freedom, truth, and human thought itself. Is this progress—or quiet control?  🔔 Subscribe for thoughtful discussions that go beyond the headlines.  Tired of divisive finger-pointing? We need your support. Join us on Patreon https://www.patreon.com/c/IntoTheDesert  YouTube Channel for Sociology 119 Professor: https://www.youtube.com/@SOC119  George Orwell's 1984: https://www.amazon.com/GEORGE-ORWEL-AN%C4%B0MAL-FARM-BRAND/dp/6055114518/ref=sr_1_7?crid=HFE8BBIPMF…  Purchase your copy of Preserving Democracy by Elgin L. Hushbeck Jr. today: https://amzn.to/3C3oTGO   Audible Version: https://www.audible.com/pd/B0D3NJV2WC/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-397936&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_397936_rh_us   Purchase your copy of Seeking Truth by Elgin L. Hushbeck Jr. today: https://amzn.to/3UCWnSS   Audible Version: https://www.audible.com/pd/B0B399JRWY/?source_code=AUDFPWS0223189MWT-BK-ACX0-310976&ref=acx_bty_BK_ACX0_310976_rh_us  Narration: Larissa Munz  Image by pngtree.com  #AI #1984 #GeorgeOrwell #Surveillance #BigTech #ArtificialIntelligence #DigitalControl #Freedom #Technology #IntoTheDesert

Transcript

00:00In 1948, this man had a haunting and terrifying vision of what the world might become before the end of

00:06the 20th century.

00:07He imagined the world held in a grip of fear, a world of absolute conformity, of continuous surveillance, of organized

00:15hatred, and ceaseless war, where language and history are being systematically destroyed.

00:26George Orwell's 1984.

00:31Welcome to Into the Desert, exploring the wilderness of ideas.

00:34Don't forget to hit those like and subscribe buttons.

00:37We need your support.

00:38The algorithms are pushing divisive content while hiding serious discussions.

00:43Please become a fellow adventurer on Patreon and support this channel's mission of encouraging discussion and not division.

00:51The link is in the description.

00:53I'm in a book club, and recently we've been reading totalitarian novels based on a course out of Hillsdale College.

01:01And we finished 1984, and I had read it in the past, but it was interesting to read it again

01:07because every time I read it, it becomes a little bit more real.

01:13First time I read it, I thought it was fantasy fiction, never, you know, terrifying, never would happen.

01:20But now with AI and technology, the surveillance state is becoming more and more reality, and it's no longer quite

01:30in the distance.

01:33So what's your view of this, Larissa?

01:35Do you still see 1984 as an interesting novel, or is it becoming more and more real for you?

01:42Well, I think the more I understand of the world, the more what Orwell wrote about just resonates with us.

01:51And I do think that with the use of AI and surveillance capitalism and our infrastructure that we have built,

01:59I think we have opened a doorway that could allow for the type of world that Orwell describes in 1984.

02:10I do think, though, that there are some assumptions that were made in the book that wouldn't really play out

02:17in real life.

02:18I think it would take a lot for the world to get to some sort of, you know, Big Brother

02:27monitoring situation.

02:29I think there's parts in the world where there's pieces of that.

02:33North Korea pops to mind as a place that is probably as close as you can get.

02:39But I think even in North Korea, there's pushback to the regime.

02:45I don't think it's as dire as Orwell's book.

02:51I think he wrote it to an extreme that makes it really scarier than it would be in real life.

02:58I'm not sure how much pushback there is.

03:01I assume there's probably some.

03:03But I remember seeing a National Geographic or I remember seeing a documentary on a surgeon who went to North

03:11Korea to do eye surgery.

03:13And at the end of the process, they had this unveiling of their patient side or take the band-aids

03:20off.

03:21And these people were seeing for the very, very first time.

03:24And this part was filmed in what looked like a church, but instead of having an altar, they just had

03:31a picture of the Supreme Leader.

03:33And when they unwrapped the eyes of the first person, the joy in their face was so real that they

03:40could suddenly see for the first time and immediately ran to the front, bowed down, and thanked the glorious leader

03:47for giving them sight.

03:50And it was like, well, that's strange.

03:51What about the surgeon who actually did the surgery?

03:55And then they unveiled the second person, and they ran forward and did exactly the same thing.

04:01And every time they took the bandages off one of these patients, they would immediately run forward and thank the

04:06big leader, at least the portrait of the big leader.

04:09And you began to wonder, at least I did, were these people sincerely thanking their leader?

04:18Or was this just what was expected, that they dare not deviate even the slightest?

04:24They didn't want to be the person who didn't thank the glorious leader as much as the other people.

04:30So there's not a lot of room in North Korea for dissent, certainly not like we see in other countries.

04:38So I do think that that type of influence actually does tie to 1984, because I know this is a

04:49big spoiler,

04:50but the character in 1984, the book ends with him finally loving Big Brother.

04:58Everything they did was to basically convince him to have not just a fake love, but a sincere love for

05:07Big Brother.

05:08And that's kind of the scariest aspect, is you cease to be a person.

05:13You just become part of the party, part of the machine.

05:19Yeah, but in 1984, at least from our perspective, we're told that it's the whole world that is in a

05:29state like this.

05:30There are three global superpowers, but they're all the same ideology, right?

05:38And they all have their own version of Big Brother.

05:41So there's three basic Big Brothers, and everybody's doing the same thing.

05:45And I don't know if that could ever happen.

05:48I think there are too many people that would fight against it.

05:52There's also the idea of religion, which is not even brought up.

05:56Yeah, that's the aspect of the total control and the surveillance.

06:01You do have the beginnings of that in China at the moment with the surveillance state and the social credit

06:09score,

06:09where they use surveillance and AI and the Internet.

06:15They track everything you do, and then they basically give you a score for every activity you did during the

06:24day.

06:24Obviously, it's not someone doing that, but it's their automation, the same that Google tracks us.

06:31They track their citizens and assign all their actions either a plus or minus as to whether they're supporting the

06:39state or not.

06:40And then that is taken into account as to everything that happens in your life, what jobs you get.

06:48Are you allowed to take a vacation?

06:49What type of home do you get to live in?

06:52And if your social credit score is high, then that's good.

06:57You get nicer things.

06:59If your social credit score is lower, then you may not get that promotion or get to take that vacation

07:06you wanted because you're just not going to be allowed to do that.

07:10And that's the sort of encompassing control that we see.

07:16You see that even, for example, in Europe, where they're tracking what people post online.

07:22And if you cross the rules of what they think is appropriate speech, you know, I heard a report recently

07:29that they had 12,000 visits by the police in Great Britain last year checking on people because they had

07:38made inappropriate posts online.

07:40Yeah, well, and I think truthfully, government is obviously something we should worry about, but I'm actually more concerned by

07:50the corporations.

07:52And if you look at Google and you look at Meta and you look at these other big conglomerations that

08:00kind of make no secret about the fact that they're taking your data and they're keeping your data and they're

08:06doing things with your data.

08:07And we're starting to see some of the effects of that in the fact that there's a lawsuit in California

08:18and I don't know all of the details.

08:20And so if I say something wrong, I apologize.

08:22But, you know, there are cases of children who, you know, they're 13, 14, 15, they're going through their bodies

08:32changing and they're seeing all of these pictures online and, you know, they get eating disorders.

08:37And so then they start looking online about eating disorders or they have suicidal thoughts.

08:43And so they're looking online and the searches are just providing them more information that feeds the disorder that they're

08:52having.

08:53And you're getting kids that will commit suicide or are going on Ozempic because they think they're fat when they're

09:03not.

09:03And they're doing permanent damage to their bodies because the algorithms, these corporations are taking that data and feeding into

09:17it and just reinforcing everything that they believe about themselves.

09:21I think this about myself and now I'm getting a whole bunch of information reinforcing that that is true.

09:28But when you actually look at reality, it's not true.

09:32There's no basis in reality to that.

09:34And I think that is the bigger fear.

09:37Well, you see it comparisons in other ways.

09:41One of the things that happens when his co-workers, Winston, the primary character, well, he was working on a

09:48revised dictionary and you think, OK, dictionaries are good.

09:52But what they were doing is they were trying to reduce the amount of words they were.

09:57He was very proud, this other co-worker, Winston, that they had removed so many words from the language.

10:04And the idea is that you keep reducing the number of words, suddenly you're unable to express things.

10:15And the big goal was to reduce the language down to the point that the only thing you could do

10:23with the language is say nice things and think nice things about Big Brother.

10:31Think about it, for example, when you think, do you think with words?

10:36Do you think, you know, I like that person or I don't like that person?

10:42Our thoughts are constrained by our language.

10:44They're shaped by our language.

10:46Yeah, but language came after the fact.

10:49We had thoughts long before we had language.

10:54And so I don't think you can have a dictionary that has 10 words in it.

10:58And guess what?

10:59We're going to come up with ways of communicating.

11:01All you have to do is look at a little child and the words that they make up to be

11:05able to try to communicate the ideas in their head.

11:09Thinking is not constrained with words, but it is shaped by words.

11:14We think in ways that how do you think in your head without having words in your head?

11:23You think through something, you know, like for people doing math, when they do math, they do math in their

11:30native language because they can't deal with abstract mathematics.

11:34Nobody does.

11:35So if they need to add two numbers, they'll revert back to their original language so that they can do

11:42the math.

11:43So yes, our thoughts are not completely constrained by our language, but our thoughts are shaped and controlled by our

11:53language because that's the mechanism in which we think.

11:56And so if you don't have the words for something, it's hard to think about it or at least hard

12:04to think in a precise way about it.

12:07And that's kind of where I'm going because you see the same thing in society where various sides try to

12:16shape your view of them by changing the language.

12:21And so you have classic example, you have pro-choice and pro-life.

12:26Notice that the word, they both begin with pro, and they try to shape a positive view of themselves by

12:35using the language.

12:36And of course, each side has negative terms for the other side.

12:41Again, they're trying to shape the language.

12:43So rather than have a discussion about abortion, right, that we have this discussion over labels.

12:53You see the same thing with, for example, the whole immigration issue where we're told we're not supposed to use

13:00the term illegal alien because we only use the term migrant.

13:04Well, if you think only in migrants, then how do you start expressing the concept of an illegal alien if

13:13you're only allowed to use the term migrant?

13:16This is, again, a way of shaping the language to constrain our thoughts.

13:22If those that disagree are allowed to or disappear or don't speak up, you're right.

13:30Those that control the language will eventually win out.

13:34But you see that even now.

13:36I mean, there are plenty of people out there that are calling a spade a spade.

13:42They're not going through, well, it's this term or it's that term, the whole political correctness that came out in,

13:49what was it, late 80s, early 90s.

13:52People are starting to push back on that.

13:55But, you know, they're starting to say you can't just keep redefining terms or relabeling things because it's changing the

14:05world.

14:05And they're saying, no, you can't do that.

14:08A spade is a spade.

14:09You can't call it anything else.

14:12A rose by any of their names still smells as sweet.

14:16Exactly, exactly.

14:19But it's still a rose.

14:21You can call it a skunkweed or, you know, it's still a rose.

14:26And changing that doesn't change the nature of what it is.

14:30I mean, you kind of get into an idea of nature versus perception.

14:35And you really can't change nature.

14:37You might want to change your perception of nature because you don't like it, you know.

14:42But that doesn't change what it really is.

14:45I might not like if it's really hot and I get a sunburn.

14:49I might not like it if it's rainy.

14:52But calling a rainy day sunny or a sunny day cloudy doesn't change the fact that it's sunny or cloudy.

15:01And there are people that won't stand for that.

15:06There are people that they get to a certain point and they say, no, enough is enough.

15:11And you see that throughout history.

15:14Anybody who's tried to go through that level of control, it's temporary.

15:19It might be a generation or two, but I don't see how it can last much longer than that.

15:23Human nature doesn't allow for that.

15:27Maybe, maybe not.

15:28This is, I mean, this is the whole point of 1984, which is Winston rebels against that.

15:35At one point in the book, he hates Big Brother and he sees freedom in the fact that he can

15:41actually even write that on a piece of paper.

15:44Except by the end of the book, he loves Big Brother and he sincerely loves Big Brother.

15:51Now, you can say, well, people will rebel.

15:53Well, but in England, you've got 12,000 encounters with the police because people posted things that were inappropriate.

16:01Who decides what's inappropriate?

16:04Who decides who decides to, you know, quote the age of surveillance capitalism?

16:09Right.

16:09And if the powers that be start saying, you're not allowed to use certain words, you're not allowed to use

16:16certain phrases.

16:17We had a shooting of a college student in La Hoya by an illegal alien.

16:23And the school newspaper reported from the police report that the alleged murderer was an illegal alien.

16:32A week later, the paper published an apology because they were not supposed to use the term illegal alien.

16:40But if you use the term migrant, then that changes the truth as to what actually happened.

16:47Because lots of migrants are not here illegally.

16:51So this is the growing trend.

16:54Yes, it kind of goes away, but is it going away because the powers that be currently don't support it?

17:03But if they get back in power, they'll start pushing it again and we'll have cancel culture again and we'll

17:09have people being suppressed again.

17:11Actually, you see this on YouTube.

17:13A lot of the people we watch, gamers on YouTube or whatever, and when they get to certain areas, they

17:20start using all kinds of euphemisms because, you know, they'll talk about that thing that happened in 2020 or they'll

17:28talk up in other vague terms because they don't want to use particular words because they use particular words.

17:36They're going to get demonetized or their videos, things we've seen, the videos will get suppressed.

17:43So, yeah, even though they say it goes away and people go, you know, it doesn't really go away.

17:49But I think that's where people try to find other ways around.

17:52And if you're making your life off of social media, you find that you end up playing the rules for

18:00social media.

18:02And, you know, that's one of the problems we have with this channel.

18:05We don't want to follow those rules.

18:08We are specifically trying to set up a channel where we can have open and honest discussions and show people

18:14how to have those discussions and open up the conversation so that we don't get into a place like 1984.

18:21So we're not being brainwashed because, well, today we're going to call the sun the sun, but tomorrow it's no

18:30longer the sun, it's the moon.

18:32And everybody just goes along like it's always been the moon.

18:36I mean, it makes no logical sense, but, you know, if you're playing the game, you will do it.

18:44You will say that the sun is now the moon because that's what the game tells you to do.

18:47But I think there will always be those people who won't play the game.

18:52And I think the biggest tragedy of 1984 is that the ending is hopeless.

19:03There's no hope in how you would get out of a situation like that.

19:08But I don't see that as a realistic ending.

19:13I think that's, I think it's possible, but my faith doesn't allow me to go there.

19:20I feel like no matter what, there's going to be a happy ending, whether it's in this life or the

19:24next.

19:25But what you'll see and what we are seeing is, okay, universities are breeding grounds for these thoughts, these new

19:34way of classifying words.

19:37And again, with the Lojea tragedy, you know, not being able to say illegal immigrant, you come back to, there's

19:46a large number of people that aren't sending their kids to universities.

19:49And you're now seeing there are certain universities that are starting up as anti the other universities, you know.

20:00So there are these Bible colleges that are signing up to get back to more traditional thoughts, more traditional ways

20:06of learning and sticking to open discussions about things.

20:12There are teachers still out there that bring up, there's this one teacher and I can't remember his name, but

20:19he does lots of videos and his class is full of people talking about social issues and gender binary and

20:28white privilege and does it exist or does it not exist?

20:32And being able to have those open conversations without judgment.

20:37And what you're finding is that things aren't the way we've been taught and people are starting to see that

20:46and people are starting to find ways of disseminating that information, whether it's homeschooling, private schooling, alternative schooling, or even

20:57just going back to no schooling and trade schools.

21:01For one, for one, the United States has the First Amendment.

21:04And so we have a very much a strong cultural belief in free speech, freedom of speech.

21:14That doesn't exist in a lot of our country.

21:16It doesn't exist in Britain.

21:18So, you know, they have the official secret sacks, which is something we can't have here that would be unconstitutional.

21:26So, we have some safeguards that are currently in existence in the United States.

21:33But what happens when one of those, you know, what happens when Big Brother takes over and is in charge,

21:43like in North Korea?

21:44You know, you may be right.

21:46Maybe something, you know, maybe it is a temporary thing by definition and eventually it will be overcome.

21:52Well, we're going to find out in the sense that, you know, North Korea lasts another couple hundred years and

21:59they're still in the same place.

22:01Well, then maybe not.

22:02If China continues down the path of continued surveillance and social credit scores and total monitoring, which is where they're

22:13going,

22:15are they going to get more totalitarian or are they going to get less?

22:19We'll find out.

22:20Now, I don't think it's hopeless.

22:23The book, yeah, 1984 ends with no hope, but I don't think Orwell wrote it for no hope.

22:31Orwell wrote it basically as a safeguard is this is a danger to watch out for because if you don't

22:38stand against it,

22:41then once it gets in place, you know, it's easier to prevent than it is to get rid of.

22:50So as long as you have free speech, it's antithetical to totalitarianism.

22:57You can't have totalitarianism and free speech.

23:00They don't go together.

23:02However, once you lose free speech, very difficult to get it back.

23:07It's very difficult to get it in the first place.

23:10If you look at the whole course of human history, free speech has been a very rare exception.

23:17Tolerance has been a rare exception.

23:19The idea that I disagree with you.

23:22You know, Voltaire's famous saying is, you know, not his, but it was attributed to him or summed up his

23:27view by one of his biographers,

23:29which is, I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it.

23:36Yeah.

23:38That's a very, historically, a very uncommon view.

23:41And if you're going to just go by history, that's more likely to disappear than totalitarianism.

23:49Yeah, I agree.

23:52I think if we lose our ability to have free speech with the infrastructure that we have in place, it

24:01would be very hard.

24:04I don't think it's impossible.

24:05I really don't think it's impossible, but it would be very hard to get back to a country like we

24:12have even today, let alone what we had 50 years ago.

24:17Yeah, if you look at the polls, increasing numbers of people are open to the idea of limits on speech.

24:26Yeah, they all say, yeah, why support free speech, except for hate speech?

24:31Well, hate speech is different from person to person, right?

24:37For some people, just disagreeing with them is hate speech.

24:40So if you get to the point that you can't disagree with somebody, then you've already lost a large part

24:48of the battle.

24:50Yeah, because there's an arrogance to that as well.

24:54I really think that there's a narcissistic arrogance to thinking that you disagree with me, therefore you're a horrible person.

25:04Why?

25:05You disagree with me, you might be right.

25:08I might be right.

25:09I don't know.

25:11But just because we have a disagreement, we could both be wrong.

25:14And guess what?

25:16We can both be right.

25:17Yeah.

25:18We can disagree and both be right.

25:22Yeah.

25:23So what do you think?

25:24Do you think books like 1984 are valuable?

25:28They have lessons to teach us.

25:30Do you think they're fantasy and could never happen?

25:32Do you think it's a real danger that we're slowly drifting into?

25:37Or that it's a past threat that we're, it's no longer a big concern.

25:43Tell us what you think in the comments.

25:45We love listening to your comments and we actually reply to many of them.

25:49If you made this far, consider watching some of our other videos and supporting our channel on Patreon.

25:55Thank you for watching Into the Desert, exploring the wilderness of ideas.

25:59And to our fellow adventurers, a special thank you for helping to support this channel on Patreon.

26:04And to our fellow adventurers, a special thank you for joining us.

Category

Transcript

Recommended