Over the past 25 years, the United States has invested billions in a network of surveillance towers along its southern border, marketed as a «virtual wall» to detect and intercept border crossers and save lives. However, an investigation has uncovered more than a thousand individuals who passed through areas monitored by these towers but were neither reached nor apprehended, and who ultimately lost their lives there. Some of these deaths occurred under the watch of recently deployed AI-powered towers that are designed to automatically identify people.
The findings point to a humanitarian crisis that is more extensive than previously understood, and they highlight repeated failures of the virtual wall’s core security promise. MIT Technology Review editors and reporters will host a discussion to examine the shortcomings of border surveillance technology and to share the stories of those who die in the borderlands.
Speakers: n, editor in chief, l, senior AI reporter, and o, senior features and investigations reporter
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