AI Surveillance is an advance in Call to Power II.
Gameplay[]
The discovery of AI Surveillance is a double-edged sword. It enables players to employ the Spy Plane for unprecedented levels of surveillance. It also introduces the Security Monitor, a device that constantly monitors every aspect of citizens' lives. Although this gives a ruler far-reaching power over the lives of his or her people, citizens may not welcome the invasion of privacy and civil liberties.
Great Library entry[]
Advancements in video technology, computer systems and artificial intelligence proliferated in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The prevalence of private security systems in homes, businesses and institutions was not a new phenomenon. However, in response to an increasingly strident public outcry at rising crime rates, many cities began to install security systems in public places. These new systems employed sophisticated AI protocols to monitor activity and process any abnormalities. At first, law enforcement efforts found the new AI surveillance systems a boon to their operations. Crime rates dropped, due to enhanced criminal identification and apprehension efforts.
Some law enforcement advocates began to speculate on the potential uses for AI surveillance in private areas as well. They pointed to their successes on the streets as proof of the system's worth and pressed lawmakers to relax privacy laws in order to enable building owners to install surveillance systems in their buildings to monitor tenants. What had become a positive solution to the problem of public-area crime became a nightmarish violation of privacy, as government and law enforcement now had the power to monitor people in their own homes. The same public that demanded surveillance systems on the streets now found cameras in their homes. Crime continued to drop, as people no longer had a place to hide their illicit activities. However, the constant invasion of privacy, once a right guaranteed by many civilized nations, had created an embittered and outraged public.