By Maraithe Thomas

Imagine a world in which everything said and done is recorded and archived – perhaps not just by the everyday recording tools that first spring to mind, but by microscopic devices that float in the air, unseen. Now, imagine if this world were only 10 years away. According to the World Future Society, it’s a likely scenario.

The World Future Society was founded in 1966, and strives to inform people about ideas and technologies they believe will shape the world to come – in part by generating an annual list of thought-provoking predictions about the future in its aptly named magazine, The Futurist. Their manifesto: “When people can visualize a better future, then they can begin to create it.”

This year’s list of predictions includes the possible use of “nano-implants” as the next step in the move toward hands-free and voice-activated tools; a unique Internet Protocol (IP) address for every person; a more secular culture in the Middle East; 83 percent of the world having access to electricity by 2030; and the use of fewer antidepressants.

It also confronts ideas about the future of privacy in the world – particularly one article written by Gene Stephens, an editor of The Futurist, about the use of nanotechnology in the realm of surveillance.

“We have nanodevices that you can send through the blood stream to find cancer cells, cauterize them and send out of the body,” Stephens said. “If you put a million into your body, you’d never see them, and that’s a million cancer cells destroyed.”

These types of nanodevices are so small they are created atom-by-atom, so an object created with thousands of atoms would still be invisible to the human eye – even if they were used to make a camera, Stephens said.

But Anders Liljeholm, an expert on nanotechnology from the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry, said the development and implementation of this kind of “unseen” surveillance may be much further away than The Futurist asserts.

“It’s completely probable that bee-sized robots will exist within the next 20 years,” he said. “But when you get really small, powering it and controlling it becomes a serious problem.”

He said he thinks applications of nanotechnology in the future will be more practical, like in making cars and buildings stronger, cheaper and lighter than they are now.

Andrew Peace, a sophomore computer science major, doesn’t consider nano-surveillance feasible either.

“I think there’s a difference between entrusting your information to a technology provider and entrusting your body with a piece of technology,” he said. “Knowing our government, they’ll probably have a say about what’s legal and what’s not, and I doubt that something like that would be allowed on a wide-scale.”

While the primary designation of nanotechnology is currently in the medical field, its use in law enforcement is impending. Stephens said some police teams are already being trained in using such technology.

“Ten years from now, we can take a high-crime neighborhood and put the bots in,” Stephens said. “Everything that happens inside and outside will be recorded.”

But as Northeastern sociology professor Judith Perrolle puts it, there is a huge difference between what she calls “social surveillance” and the kind of surveillance described in Stephens’ article.

“Being in contact with people, even people you don’t see, is reciprocal in the social setting,” she said. “The kind of government surveillance isn’t reciprocal, it’s scary.”

Perrolle added that when a society cuts back on privacy in the name of security, it opens the door for fascism and abuses of power. And while people may want more technology to help them better communicate and socialize with others, they may not want other results of new social tools, like being potentially spied on, she said.

“With new technology, people find ways to use it differently than what the people who designed it originally intended,” she said.

What type of new technology do students hope to see in the future? Nothing as sinister as invisible cameras.

“I’d like to see Apple build an iPod that doesn’t break after a year and a half,” Peace said.