Featured Image Credit: @bilawalsidhu / YouTube
The world faces more surveillance right now than at any point in history, and while most of that is controlled by governments and massive tech companies, one YouTuber managed to achieve his very own 'God's Eye' of the world.
It has been over a decade since Edward Snowden revealed how the US government is spying on its citizens through the National Security Agency (NSA), and cybersecurity experts will tell you that it's only got worse since that point.
Former intelligence officers have revealed how government agencies are able to track the movements of pretty much anyone they want, and with the rise of AI it only seems like that will continue at a frightening pace.
What many didn't expect, however, is that AI would allow 'average' people to see the world through a panopticon, and one YouTuber has left social media shocked after revealing a project that could have frightening consequences.
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Bilawal Sidhu used to work as a Senior Product Manager at Google, specifically on the company's AI, 3D, and VR divisions in relation to Google Maps, and he has since taken to YouTube to share his expertise.
Using his experience within the field, however, Sidhu managed to complete a project he calls 'WorldView', denoting it as his "geospatial command center that kind of broke the internet."
People compared it to what Palantir currently offers some of the most powerful governments, as he used an AI agent to capture every open-source signal across the world, including "satellite surveillance passes, GPS jamming, commercial and military flights, maritime tracking at the Strait of Hormuz, airspace closures across nine countries, all of it."
It just so happened that he built the project at the 'perfect' time, as it coincided with the US and Israeli militaries' attacks on Iran, referred to as Operation Epic Fury.
Sidhu managed to see exactly how the controversial operation was carried out in its entirety. "Every strike, every rerouted flight, every ship going dark, replayable on a 3D globe, minute by minute."
What's more, he went through the whole process in a mind-blowing YouTube video, letting everyone see far more than they would expect through the project.
That has left some of his viewers feeling concerned about his safety though, as they believe that it could leave him in trouble with the government for potentially sharing 'secrets' of war and seeing things he probably shouldn't.
"Dude's either gonna get a job offer, murdered, or both," speculates one commenter, with another noting that "you should be careful, you don't want to get disappeared."
Others have reacted negatively to the project as a whole, with a third user declaring: "There goes my hopes for privacy in the future," and it's hard to not feel as if WorldView has opened people's eyes to the level of surveillance that's out there.
