This is Invisibiliya, a story about the invisible forces that shape human behavior,

Amalie Spiegel, and I'm Lula Miller.

Let's begin today the way any good apocalyptic horror movie begins on a sunny day.

It was a beautiful day, beautiful morning.

I was sitting out on the back patio, I was having coffee, and I thought,

I think I'll walk out front and check the mail.

This is the early 90s, 1991 to be exact.

We are in Central California, and this is our main character, Steve Barkley.

So I walked down the driveway, opened up the gate, went to the mailbox,

and there's this letter from the Campbell Police Department.

And I went, well, okay, so I opened it up, and there is a picture of me.

It was grainy.

It was black and white and grainy, but it was him.

Seated in the front seat of his car,

hands on the steering wheel, obviously in the midst of driving somewhere.

And I was smiling in the picture.

And alongside this grainy photo of him in his car, was a document.

It was a photo speeding ticket in the amount of $45, and I went, what?

Now again, this was the early 90s.

At that point, photo traffic enforcement was basically unheard of.

In fact, California was one of the first states in America to introduce it.

So Steve had never encountered this idea that he was automatically being watched by machines.

...