My notion of Utopia is a world where there are no political system in place but justice and law are still up to ensure the safety and comfort for society. On the other hand, my notion of Dystopia is a place where there are no freedom or human rights at all. Every movement and words are monitored and controlled, everything we consume via visually and/or ingesting are picked at and criticized.
Fig. 1. M.A.T.A.R Robot deployed at local dormitory to make sure residence adhere to COVID-19 safe distancing measures (Source: https://www.mha.gov.sg/home-team-news/story/detail/matar-wheeled-presence-on-the-ground/)
It is observed that Singapore is turning into dystopian country due to the fact that our movement and actions are monitored via closed-circuit television and sound surveillance.
Fig. 2 XAVIER Robot patrolling Toa Payoh HDB Centre (Source: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/autonomous-robots-checking-on-bad-behaviour-in-the-heartland)
For example, robots named "Multi-purpose All-Terrain Autonomous Robots (MATAR)" (Fig. 1) and "XAVIER" (Fig. 2) has been deployed for reasons such as enforcing laws to prevent people from breaking them and detecting abnormalities. The difference between MATAR and XAVIER is that MATAR robot is deployed mostly at crowded places or at events such as National Day Parade to patrol and keep a look out for suspicious activity. (Institute for Infocomm and Resesarch, 2020) XAVIER robot is deployed to patrol around Toa Payoh HDB Hub to look out for "undesirable social behaviours" and to keep the people in check. Within moments, XAVIER robot spotted a man taking a puff of cigarette at an area where smoking is prohibited, XAVIER then records the video footage of the man and sent the footage to a command and control centre where the video is then fed into a video analytics system which is programmed to recognize the posture of the man and the cigarette in his mouth, together with other visual indicators to help identify other patrons who are doing the same thing in a no smoking area. (Kok, 2021) These makes the people feeling a sense of unease that they need to watch their speech and actions, moving Singapore into a "Dystopian world of surveillance state".(The Guardian, 2021)
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References
A-Star Institute for Infocomm Research. 2020. M.A.T.A.R. 3.0 [online] Available at: <https://www.a-star.edu.sg/i2r/news/multi-purpose-all-terrain-autonomous-robot-m.a.t.a.r-3.0> [Accessed 09 May 2022].
Kok Yufeng. 2021. Autonomous robots check on bad behaviour in Singapore's heartland [online] Available at: <https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/autonomous-robots-checking-on-bad-behaviour-in-the-heartland> [Accessed 09 May 2022].
The Guardian. 2021. 'Dystopian world': Singapore patrol robots stoke fears of surveillance state [online] Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/06/dystopian-world-singapore-patrol-robots-stoke-fears-of-surveillance-state> [Accessed 09 May 2022].
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