Is life better with everything digitised, recorded and checked by technology?

[MattDillonsEyebrows]

Please excuse my very layman's explanation, but apparently, during the England v Norway game the ball was kicked high into the air and some people thought it had clipped the spider cam. The goal stood because apparently there's a chip inside the ball, and the data from that chip showed it never touched the camera.

That got me thinking...

There's literally a chip inside a ball now. A ball!!! We've got to the point where we're so worried about the ref missing something that we put technology inside a ball to double check everything. If the ref can't use their own judgement because every decision has to be backed up by technology, what's the point of having a ref in the first place?

And it made me think about the bigger picture. More and more of life is becoming digital, recorded and now AI-driven. Is the world actually better because of it?
In theory it's fairer, and I get that. But does it also make everything more sanitised? Less human? Less room for common sense?

I remember getting stopped by the police years ago. I'd was smoking a cigarette while driving, wasn't wearing a seatbelt and I'd taken a corner too fast. The officer pulled me over, gave me a proper telling off, realised I'd scared myself enough to learn my lesson, and sent me on my way with a warning.

That just wouldn't happen now. It'd all be recorded. I'd probably get points on my licence, higher insurance, and maybe even have it affect future job opportunities because so many employers want a clean licence.

Now don't get me wrong, I know things could have ended differently that day. Someone could have got hurt. But they didn't, and that experience was enough to change how I drove. The officer used his judgement instead of just following a process.
I suppose what I'm really asking is this...

Is the world genuinely better because everything is digitised, recorded and checked by technology? Or would you rather live in a world where people have more freedom to make mistakes, even if that means accepting that sometimes those mistakes will be the wrong ones?

I think some schools over record everything e.g. didn’t bring a pen to a lesson, needed to use the toilet etc, which seems suffocating.

Exactly, school is another one. I was at school in the 80’s/90’s and there was always the option to skive for the day. We’d likely get into trouble for it, but we weren’t locked in with no escape. I really feel this is adding to the anxieties of teenagers today. But the powers that be would argue it’s ’keeping Everyone safe’.
Is the determination to keep everyone safe suffocating us?

In answer to your question, no absolutely not. Slightly different type of scenario, but I was in a mobile phone shop the other day to purchase an upgrade and omg, the amount of time it took! Literally two hours, where there were layers and layers of complexity with security questions, transferring data, uploads to the cloud, navigating optional extras etc etc. I actually remarked at the time, that fifteen years ago the entire process would have taken thirty minutes tops. Progress is supposed to make things quicker and more efficient not this. I pity older people too, who are being left behind with technological advances - even booking a simple gp appointment is fraught with difficulties, where often the only option is to book using the nhs app. Woe betide you haven't got access to the internet, or can't remember the half a dozen passwords!

No. It was sold to use an convenient but as pp said it really isn't. I can't even visit a Web page anymore without ticking boxes to prove I'm not a bot.

I object to being under constant surveillance, I hate it.

We sold a promise of convenience, greater equality and freedoms, better service and accuracy and instead it's being used to enslave us.

It's all about selling and making money.

I can’t imagine it’s about money & selling things as the school example is about control of where the students are:

Do you think the benefits of making a more fair world for everyone outweigh the issues?

In the police example I gave, if the officer had been having a bad day, if I wasn’t a 19 year old clearly batting my eyelashes smiling sweetly & apologising profusely, If I had been a man,
I could have been treated much differently: that was all down to the individual choice of the officer, which now with body cams etc has been taken away/

Likewise the football example, the chip in the ball is supposed to make the game fairer for everyone, the judgement of the ref has been taken away.

Is a fairer society always a better society?