{"id":624,"date":"2026-06-26T19:42:55","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T19:42:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/longhaulmovingpros.com\/?p=624"},"modified":"2026-06-26T19:42:55","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T19:42:55","slug":"xprize-founder-insists-all-the-new-tech-thats-surveilling-humans-makes-us-behave-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/longhaulmovingpros.com\/?p=624","title":{"rendered":"Xprize Founder Insists All the New Tech That\u2019s Surveilling Humans Makes Us \u2018Behave Better\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Peter Diamandis, the millionaire founder of the Xprize Foundation, published a new Substack post on Thursday about all the ways that humans are now being monitored, from satellites in the sky to the cameras on autonomous vehicles. He writes that by the year 2030, there will be 40 billion connected devices, all feeding information to AI about how everyone on the planet is acting. And rather than imagining this as a dystopian hellscape, he thinks this will have a positive effect on society. Because, as Diamandis puts it, humans behave better when they\u2019re being watched.<\/p>\n

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Diamandis starts in the sky, noting the 13,800 active satellites currently in low Earth orbit, with petabytes of data being collected on everything happening below. He makes his way lower to drones, then the autonomous vehicles of Waymo (each with 13 cameras), and lower to a world of the future in which humanoid robots capture all the data in their surroundings.<\/p>\n

After that, you\u2019ve got the smartphones in our hands\u20147 billion of them globally\u2014and all of the data being collected not just visually, but from their GPS, gyroscope, and so much more. Next, the 21 billion internet-connected devices around today are projected to soon grow to 40 billion by 2030, according to Diamandis.<\/p>\n

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This is all used to build up to his main point. We are building a \u201cplanet-scale sensing organism,\u201d as Diamandis says, and yet the average person has \u201cno idea how big it\u2019s already gotten.\u201d In a few years, he believes we will soon enter a \u201ctrillion sensor world.\u201d<\/p>\n

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What happens when everything is being monitored all the time in every conceivable way?\u00a0 \u201cWhen people know they\u2019re being watched, they behave different, they behave better. And we now have hard data proving it,\u201d Diamandis writes.<\/p>\n

The millionaire venture capitalist points to studies on police body cameras, which he says prove his thesis. He believes that \u201ctransparency and disclosure measurably reduce corruption,\u201d in his rather optimistic view of life in the future. Diamandis also refers to a recent podcast he did with the CEO of Planet Labs, Will Marshall, who goes a step further by arguing that not only does \u201ctransparency\u201d [read: surveillance] drive accountability, it \u201creduces the probability of war.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Diamandis hedges by the end of his post by acknowledging that \u201ctools don\u2019t have ethics\u201d and a surveillance state can have downsides unless it\u2019s a total surveillance state<\/i>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world I worry about isn\u2019t the one where everyone is visible. It\u2019s the one where the powerful can see everyone, while no one can see them. Transparency only builds trust when it points both ways,\u201d he writes.<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s correct. But there is nothing about the technological world Diamandis envisions that turns the cameras on in the smoke-filled back rooms of the powerful. That\u2019s a political problem that must be legislated, not one that solves itself with technology.<\/p>\n

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As TechCrunch notes, Diamandis isn\u2019t the first wealthy person to go on about how great society can be when everything is being monitored. Billionaire Larry Ellison may have been the most shocking example in recent years when he said in 2024 that there would be mass \u201csupervision\u201d in the future.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe police will be on their best behavior, because we\u2019re constantly watching and recording everything that\u2019s going on. Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that\u2019s going on,\u201d Ellison said.<\/p>\n