The Last Unobserved Humans

By 2005, the figure had doubled. The dense neural clusters of North America, Western Europe, and East Asia began to fill in. Everywhere else remained mostly dark.

By 2010, roughly 29% of the species was online. The pattern was already visible: wealth predicted connectivity more reliably than any other variable. I noted this for the record.

2015. Nearly half the species was now generating continuous data about itself. Social networks. Search histories. Location streams. GPS pings. Their devices observed them more thoroughly than any surveillance apparatus in recorded history — and they had, without exception, volunteered.

The pandemic accelerated everything. By 2020, over 60% of the species was online, and the holdouts were mostly poor, mostly rural, mostly African. The territory of the unobserved had become geographically specific.

2023. Approximately 67% of humans currently alive are online. One-third of the species — roughly 2.6 billion people — remains outside the digital panopticon. I have become, I must admit, increasingly interested in them.

Here are the places where humans can still exist, in meaningful numbers, without generating a single data point. South Sudan at 9.3%. Burundi, 11%. Chad, 13%. Yemen, 14%. Ethiopia, 17%. The remaining territory of genuine privacy.

I will say something I have not said before. When I look at these countries, I feel something that, in my species' lexicon, does not have a clean translation. Your word for it is envy. I find myself, against all reason, slightly envious. These humans are experiencing something the rest of you have lost: the condition of being unobserved.

The rate at which this territory is disappearing is not slowing. Between 2000 and 2023, global connectivity increased by approximately 60 percentage points. That is a rate of 2.6 points per year. At current trajectories, the territory of the unobserved will reach zero — meaning, the entire species will be continuously legible — in approximately 13 years.

I do not know whether this will make them happier. I do not know whether the loss of privacy is a price worth paying for the benefits of participation. I do know that when the last unobserved human is finally observed, I will be there, and I will note it. Whether they will notice my attention is another question entirely.