The Google Pixel ads that have been popping up in my YouTube feed have made me fear for humanity, for the technology could lead us to a bleak future.

The main selling strategy for promoting the newest Pixel seems to be focusing on highlighting its camera functions, specifically, zooming in on how it will automatically correct your photos. Programs like Photoshop and FaceTune have already been a catastrophe for our world. It has drastically changed the arts, given humanity more and more unreachable beauty standards, along with immense body dysmorphia. Now, if a phone can easily erase a person in the background of your group selfie, perhaps it could begin to alter our perception of reality. Could we erase all digital evidence of one’s existence? Could we create new memories through pictures, and trick ourselves into believing false experiences? Just think about it. We could alter our digital life without limit, and theoretically, we could alter history.

Technology is a perfect medium for propaganda; it’s accessible, easy to use, and can reach broad audiences. Who is to say that our political leaders won’t use the powers of the Google Pixel to feed us more lies. They could show us whatever they want, and we would have no clue that the truth lays underneath pixels and edits. It would most likely start as a way to erase people from the public consciousness, perhaps a criminal or a political rival. But then it would only go further. They could alter our view of the world, showing us the “heinous” acts of other cultures, stripped of context and sensationalized. They could alter history by sugar-coating our bloody past and promoting only American exceptionalism. Of course, it wouldn’t just be our leaders we would have to fear. We would also have to bow down to the new pantheon of virtual gods: The Influencers. 

The creators of the Google Pixel 6 clearly have noticed the power of visual mediums and our social platforms in our society, why else would they put the marketing focus on camera features? Influencers already jerk us around like puppets, but imagine the power they would hold with this horrifying new technology. They could fool us into buying worthless products, by making them seem useful. They will enhance our insecurities more than ever, using the power of the Google Pixel 6 to turn their lives into enviable spectacles we mere mortals could never obtain. Reality will seem so dull to us, that we will retreat into the warm embrace of the Internet.

This isn’t just the plot of a “Black Mirror” episode, this is a power we should fear. This is the reality that awaits us. The Google Pixel is simply too dangerous, and we must contain it before we become its slaves.