FIRST, may I wish you all a very Happy New Year.

Among the presents one of my friends received this Christmas was an Amazon Echo that goes by the name of Alexa.

She, or is it It, is the latest in SMART devices that can act as a personal assistant to answer questions, remind you of jobs to be done, select music and even control other household electrical devices linked to the internet.

He loves it and finds the whole world of artificial intelligence one of fascination and excitement.

Clearly this is an incredible piece of technology that delights. The boundary lines between machines that are purely mechanical and those that learn and adapt is rapidly diminishing. A recent article in the Times suggested that soon everything from fridges to light bulbs will be SMART and part of the internet of things. In such a world, all our actions from switching on a light to making a meal will be recorded.

The article in the Times did make think again of Orwell's novel 1984. Orwell wrote the book on the island of Jura in 1948. While his dystopian vision of the future is not the one we inhabit, there are themes developed in the book that are now in our psyche and language such as: Big Brother, Doublethink, Room 101 and the two way Telescreen.

In Orwell's novel the four ministries of Peace, Plenty, Love and Truth control the population through perpetual war, rationing and hunger, torture and brainwashing and revising history, art and culture to suit the political elite.

What Orwell's novel does is to ask whether, in a brutal world of political correctness and perpetual surveillance, individualism, privacy and freedom can exist or has power been captured to prevent any real alternative emerging.

In 1949 Aldous Huxley, who wrote Brave New World, wrote to Orwell suggesting that rulers would hold power better by giving their citizens self-seeking pleasure rather than using brute force. Their debate concerned the best means of control in order to retain power.

Thankfully, ours is as kinder society and not that of either of those novels.

However, as we enter this new year the atrocities of brutal regimes in certain parts of the world and the mechanisms by which ruling elites retain power remain real issues.

As technologies advance, the internet of things with all its connectivity grows. Enjoying the benefits of technology is one most of us value. However doing so in a way that sustains the place of privacy and the rights of individuals is not without its challenges.

Ensuring that pleasure doesn't dull our critical faculties is a thought for the new year.