Xprize founder says ‘humans behave better when they are observed’

Peter Diamandis, founder of the

Diamandis shared his opinion on A mail On X this week, delving deeper into his beliefs on its substackWhere he described it, basically: Big brother, but good.

“Radical transparency is coming. A future where you can know anything, anytime, anywhere. A future where no one can hide,” he wrote on Substack. “We envelop the planet in a ‘sensor ecosystem’: a multi-layered living sensor system that extends from the cameras in your home, to the phone in your pocket, to autonomous cars and humanoid robots on the ground, to drones and flying cars in the air, all the way to a constellation of satellites that images every square meter of Earth every day.”

Diamandis’ comments come nearly two years after Oracle founder Larry Ellison said something very similar.

“Citizens will be at their behavioral best, because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that happens,” Ellison anticipation During an Oracle event in 2024.

Diamandis was apparently prompted to make such claims after hosting a podcast interview with Will Marshall, CEO of Planet, the largest operator of Earth observation satellites.

“No one can hide anymore,” Marshall told Diamandis during the conversation. “If you build a school, we’ll see the school. If you build a data center, we’ll see the data center. The accountability will be there for the whole world to see, no matter what.”

Diamandis, Ellison, and Marshall are not wrong that much of this technology exists and is spreading. It’s becoming increasingly difficult for people to go about their day without being photographed by home security systems like Ring, camera-laden cars like Tesla, or automated license plate readers from Flock. Even if they could, they are subject to surveillance through their phones by ad networks and data brokers.

But Diamandis’ comments are some of the most explicit about the quest to eliminate privacy.

“Your children will grow up in a world where ‘off the record’ does not exist,” he writes to any parent reading his post. “Teach them that the best strategy for privacy is integrity, and to live in such a way that it costs nothing to be seen. And fight hard for a world where viewing goes both ways.”

Diamandis seems to treat this as inevitable, but this is not how ordinary people respond to the emergence of surveillance technology. Some cities have They covered their herd cameras with garbage bags Following reports that the company’s data was accessed by ICE, the FBI and other law enforcement. Public opposition to Ring’s “Search Party” feature — which aims to find lost dogs, an idea that’s hard to argue against — contributed to the company canceling its own partnership with Flock.

Meanwhile, Meta has been dealing with complaints about its camera glasses (made in partnership with Ray-Ban), and is also struggling Lawsuit over privacy concerns.

Many of Diamandis Substack’s posts revolve around giving entrepreneurs or executives advice on how to live in a world without privacy. This advice often boils down to: “Be a good person.” And even he doesn’t have an answer to the question of whether people will do it because it’s the right thing to do, or because they might be under surveillance. (This is the question he has been “chewing on” since the conclusion of the interview with Marshall, he writes.)

What Diamandis doesn’t confront is the same set of questions that tech executives often ignore in conversations about surveillance and privacy. Unfortunately, the definition of “good” or “honest” is often in the eye of the beholder — in this case, the powerful technology companies that control the surveillance infrastructure.

Diamandis succinctly argues that these companies offer transparency, and that “transparency is a tool, and tools have no ethics.” It does not take into account the fact that tools often inherit the biases of their makers. Who decides what behavior captured by a security camera is considered “good” or “honest”? This question has never been explored, let alone answered.

All he wants to say is that transparency “only builds trust when it points in both directions.” This balance seems difficult, at best, in a world where the technology needed to create such “transparency” is controlled by very few.