All of the people, companies, political parties and conspiracies in the Kanha and Colbey series are entirely fictional, but the technology in them is either cutting edge and newly released, or in development. People often ask me how much of it is real. Is AI watching us? Is AI dangerous? What does the future hold?

The Listening Eyes

In the books, the ‘listening eyes’ are CCTV posts that the government has installed for the safety of the citizens. They are linked in to an AI system that can watch and listen 24/7. The AI has voice and face recognition capability and with enough server power can track anyone. In the wrong hands, they are a powerful tool for surveillance. So is AI watching us?

Reality – In the UK, many supermarkets and department stores now have CCTV cameras linked to AI driven Live Facial Recognition systems. The home office ‘secretly lobbied the UK’s independent privacy regulator to act “favourably” towards a private firm keen to roll out controversial facial recognition technology across the country‘. The UK police also use live facial recognition cameras on high streets in the UK. So yes, although the systems are not yet connected in to one great central system, AI is watching us.

Henri Lauvaux’s Augmented Reality Contact Lenses

In the books, the antagonist wears contact lenses which provide an enhanced view of the world, superimposing onto it data about who and what he sees around him. At the same time, the lenses take in what the wearer sees, providing a live feed back to the AI system of what is happening real time in the real world. One of Lauvaux’s employees in Dirty Geese, and in later books, some of the mobsters, wear glasses with this technology. So can we use AI linked technology to augment our reality and can AI use it to watch those around us?

In reality – the answer to this is yes, for the glasses but not the contact lenses. Terrifying as it is, technology for this exists in its first clunky form in glasses, and as this decade progresses, is likely to get sleaker and stealthier. I put the technology into contact lenses in the books because I wanted it to be clear that those who came under Lauvaux’s gaze did not know they were being considered by the AI system that sat behind them. In reality, I’m guessing to put this technology in contact lenses would be a long way off, but the glasses that do have this technology are now so ordinary looking you won’t know if someone is allowing an AI system to watch and listen to you, or if whether are just wearing good ol’ fashioned sunnies.

Facebook initially renamed its company ‘Meta’ because it believed the future lies (lay? – answers on a postcard) in the metaverse, a digital world in which people could work, play and interact. They developed VR or Virtual headsets to provide users with an immersion into this digital world. But of course people kinda need to boring stuff like walk the dogs and take the kids to school, and would look a bit stupid doing it in a VR headset. So, at the start of 2024, Apple produced a similar but enhanced product called the Apple Vision Pro, which being see-through was a bit more useable – that is if you want to take the dog for a walk in what looked like snorkelling goggles. But competition was working at its best and Meta was back, this time with Orion, their first true AR glasses.

The Alcheminna System – An AI System that knows Everything

In the books, the antagonist, Henri Lauvaux, has access to a system that knows everything about us. It has ‘joined up the dots’.

In reality – most tech companies try to learn as much about their customers as they can get away with whilst staying within the law. However, there is an expression that industry moves three times faster than regulators, and that technology moves three times faster than ordinary industry (Can anyone tell me who said this, so i can credit them?). Or something like that! As Shoshana Zuboff explains in her brilliant book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, tech companies like to steam ahead, take what ground they can, and then wait for regulators to catch up in the hope it will be too late for them to act. By the time we all get round to realising our privacy has been breached, we’ve got so used to the product that is breaching it (think Google Streetview) that we can’t seem to live without it. (By the way if you don’t want your house to show on Google Streetview, you can ask them to shade it out. Just find it on streetview, click the three little dots and select ‘Report a Problem’, then follow the instructions from there. It’s super easy and Google act within days.)

So how much do these big tech companies really know about us? The important thing to remember, is that not all that is known is shown. I’m going to expand on this soon, so check back in again soon, or sign up to the newsletter once I get it set up.

The Drones

In the book, London is trialling delivery drones which stream a few feet above the buses. The streets have become empty, cleared of a hoard of white van drivers. The drones have cameras and face recognition systems fitted as standard to allow them to navigate streets and deliver parcels to the correct recipient. London now overnight has thousands of new cameras with voice and facial recognition systems and AI capability. So how far away is this? Will AI on drones be watching us?

In reality – Drone technology took a leap forward during the conflict in Ukraine, when an army of small tech experts focused on how to use drones for warfare. The recent advances in AI have also leapt drone usage forward decades quicker that it would have advanced because AI can now control multiple drones at once, and the image recognition advances of AI allow drones to understand what is around them and act accordingly.

If you want to see drone swarms in action. Take a look here. And this isn’t even military grade. This is just for fun.

And will they be swarming through the streets of London anytime soon? Well… in November 2024, the NHS announced a medical drone delivery service for Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust, with urgent blood samples now being delivered by drone. Yes, the future is here.

So in summary? Yes, AI is watching us.