I write high-speed, strategy-driven Military Sci-Fi & Space Opera, where cunning commanders, elite soldiers, and alien warlords fight for survival on the fringes of space. Subscribe to my newsletter for my latest updates!
Is Life Getting More Dangerous?
How Much Privacy Would You Trade for Safety?(4-5 minute read) If you could reduce violent crime by 80% simply by allowing AI to watch every public street, would you do it? It's an uncomfortable question because there isn't an obvious right answer. Most of us value our privacy. We don't particularly like the thought of cameras following us everywhere we go or computers quietly analyzing our movements. At the same time, most of us also want to live in safe communities where our children can walk home from school without fear and elderly relatives can go shopping without worrying about becoming victims of crime. Those two desires sometimes pull in opposite directions. During the twelve years I spent living in Asia, I saw a fascinating example of this trade-off in Singapore. The country has extensive surveillance, strict laws and a government that many people in the West would regard as far more interventionist than their own. Critics argue that it sacrifices too much personal freedom and limits personal lifestyle choices. Supporters point to something equally real: one of the lowest crime rates in the world. I remember chatting with a Singapore police officer one afternoon. Smiling, he summed up his country's philosophy in a single sentence. "In Singapore, almost anyone can commit a serious crime once. Not many people manage it twice." His point wasn't that crime never happened. It was that the combination of good policing, widespread surveillance and increasingly sophisticated technology made it extremely difficult for repeat offenders to avoid being caught. Whether you agree with Singapore's approach or not, it raises an important question. How much security is enough? What's particularly interesting is that our perception of crime is often very different from the reality. Turn on the television or scroll through social media and you'll see murders, assaults, burglaries and scams reported around the clock. Featuring bad news attracts attention and keeps us watching, which ultimately brings in advertising dollars. We can easily come away believing crime is spiraling out of control. Yet in many countries, long-term trends tell a more complicated story. Several types of crime have fallen significantly over recent decades, even though many people feel less safe than before. Our brains remember dramatic stories far more easily than quiet statistics. Almost every day that I watch the BBC, I see news of another teen who has been stabbed to death by his peers. Yet in England and Wales, the homicide rate is now at its lowest level in almost fifty years, while knife homicides have fallen by about 21% in the latest figures. But the BBC apparently doesn’t want you to think so! Scotland was once known for some of the highest levels of violence in Western Europe. When I grew up in Glasgow in the 1970s it was so dangerous that it was known as “Stab City.” Yet Scotland, too, has reduced homicides to record lows over the past three decades. The picture is similar elsewhere. After the spike in crime during the pandemic, the United States has seen violent crime fall sharply. Recent FBI data shows murders down by more than 18%, robberies down by almost 19%, aggravated assaults down by over 7%, and property crime down by more than 12% in a single year. None of this means crime has disappeared, but it does suggest that policing, forensic science, technology and prevention strategies are gradually moving the balance in favor of society and law enforcement rather than the criminal. Only a generation ago, a murderer who left little physical evidence might never have been identified. Today, advances in DNA analysis are solving crimes that remained unsolved for twenty, thirty or even forty years. Tiny traces of evidence that were once useless can now identify a suspect with extraordinary accuracy. Cases that families had almost given up on are finally reaching court because science caught up with the criminal. The same is true across many other forms of investigation. Doorbell cameras, mobile phones, vehicle tracking systems, digital payment records and ever-improving forensic techniques mean that criminals leave far more evidence behind than they realise. AI can help investigators search enormous volumes of data in hours rather than weeks, spotting connections that human analysts might easily miss. One aspect of this progress is that crime statistics are usually increased by serious offenders who don't commit just one crime. They often offend repeatedly over many years before they are finally caught. Every improvement that helps identify those repeat offenders earlier has the potential not only to solve old cases but also to prevent harm to future victims. Better technology doesn't just look backwards. It can protect tomorrow's victims as well as deliver justice for previous crimes. Looking ahead, the pace of change is likely to accelerate. AI systems will become better at recognizing suspicious behavior in public places. Drones may help search for missing people, monitor dangerous situations and support emergency services far more quickly than they can today. Forensic science will continue improving. DNA analysis will become faster, cheaper and even more accurate. Digital evidence will become harder to erase completely. Imagine committing a serious crime in 2046. AI-assisted cameras may have recorded your movements through public spaces. Nearby vehicles could have automatically saved dashcam footage. Doorbell cameras might have captured your route through residential streets. Your mobile phone, smartwatch and connected car could have quietly created a digital timeline of your day. Drones may be overhead within minutes, while forensic teams analyze DNA and other evidence far more quickly than they can today. Even if someone escapes justice initially, every year that passes brings more powerful investigative tools. Time itself may increasingly become the enemy of those who commit violent crime. As a science fiction writer, I can't help wondering whether this is exactly the sort of world where the next great detective novel will be set. The detective's challenge might no longer be finding the evidence. The criminal's challenge would be avoiding leaving any behind. Of course, these same technologies raise important questions. Who controls the data? How long should it be kept? How do we ensure innocent people aren't unfairly monitored? How do we protect freedom while improving security? Those aren't questions to dismiss lightly. They deserve thoughtful debate because privacy matters. Freedom matters. Democracies should never stop asking difficult questions about how powerful technologies are used. But I also think it's worth recognizing that technology itself isn't good or bad. Like almost every powerful invention throughout history, its value depends on how wisely we choose to use it. Perhaps the future isn't simply about governments watching people. Perhaps it's about intelligent technology helping honest people live safer lives while making it increasingly difficult for violent criminals to escape justice. If we can combine better technology with strong safeguards, independent oversight and respect for individual rights, we may discover that the next twenty years bring something remarkable. Not a world with less freedom. A world with both greater freedom and greater safety. I think that's a future worth working towards. TV news producers often delight in telling us what's going wrong, but I think the future is quietly getting better anyway. Sleep well tonight... tomorrow may be a little brighter than you think. The best chapters may still be ahead of us. Till next time, Brian BA Gillies ***
Strike For The Galaxy is Available for Pre-Order!
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If you've been meaning to dive into the Return to the Galaxy Universe, now’s your chance!
Whether you're a new reader or just haven’t grabbed your copies yet, now’s the time to catch up on the award-winning series readers are calling “better than Scalzi” and “the best book since Heinlein died.”
If you haven’t started the series yet, Book 1 is still available to buy for 99 cents or read for free on Kindle Unlimited:
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Discover More Sci-Fi Adventures
Each week, I’ll team up with a group of talented sci-fi authors to bring you an incredible selection of books. Whether you’re looking for thrilling space battles, deep space mysteries, or first-contact encounters, these books are packed with stories to fuel your imagination.
Author Spotlight:
BA Gillies
I write high-speed, strategy-driven Military Sci-Fi & Space Opera, where cunning commanders, elite soldiers, and alien warlords fight for survival on the fringes of space. Subscribe to my newsletter for my latest updates!
The Future of Warfare (5 minute read) A few days ago, I watched a BBC report from Kherson in southern Ukraine that I found deeply disturbing. It showed Yurii, a 52-year-old vegetable seller, being hunted by a small Russian drone as he tried desperately to keep his van between himself and the machine. Each time he moved, the drone followed, circling the vehicle as he tried to escape until it finally hit him and blew up.Remarkably, Yurii survived, although he was wounded by shrapnel and...
Feed the World? (5 minute read) How will we feed perhaps ten billion people in 2076? It sounds like an enormous challenge. The world's population has already passed eight billion, climate change is making some traditional farming areas hotter and drier, and hundreds of millions of people still do not always have enough to eat. Yet when I look at how agriculture has changed during my own lifetime, I find myself surprisingly optimistic. We are becoming much better not only at producing food,...
The Future of Work and Money (5 minute read) What would you do if you no longer needed to work forty hours a week to afford a comfortable life? Would you spend more time with your family? Travel? Exercise? Study something because it interested you? Start a business, write a book, volunteer, create music or simply spend longer sitting in the garden? For most of human history, that question would have seemed absurd. People worked because the alternative was hunger. They planted crops, cared for...