Tech Won't Save Us Smart Glasses Are Ushering In An Anti-Social World w/ Chris Gilliard
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Oct 16, 2025 In this engaging discussion, Chris Gilliard, co-director of the Critical Internet Studies Institute and author of the upcoming book Luxury Surveillance, critiques the latest trend of AI-powered smart glasses. He explores the alarming normalization of surveillance, emphasizing how these devices turn users into data sources. Gilliard warns of their potential to facilitate doxing and toxic behavior. He also connects the rise of generative AI with authoritarianism, highlighting the risks of loneliness and eroded autonomy as chatbots replace genuine relationships.
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Smart Glasses As Social Threat
- Smart glasses are a profoundly antisocial technology designed to blend into fashion to avoid rejection.
- Companies learned from Google Glass and now push wearability and worker mandates to normalize them.
Liberation Framed As Constant Surveillance
- Vendors sell glasses as 'liberating you from your screen' while placing a screen directly in front of your eyes.
- They pitch constant AI companionship to justify continuous audio-visual surveillance.
Surveillance As The Product
- Tech's deal shifted from "free services for surveillance" to selling surveillance as the desirable product itself.
- The new goal is to train users to follow AI commands by collecting ever-more personal data.
