From surveillance cameras that identify the faces of passersby to algorithms that monitor emotions, AI–driven automation systems open new horizons for surveillance studies as an emerging field of knowledge. This study investigates the dynamics of surveillance in the digital age, tracing its transformation from being spatial and physical to being symbolic and networked. Surveillance has become at once a driving force for social change and a fundamental question concerning security and privacy, a predicament marked by growing entanglement, and a horizon for resistance and emancipation. The paper thus explores the evolution of surveillance studies with a literature review and a presentation of key theoretical propositions, beginning from the dual framework of scientific progress and transformations in social systems. It posits that surveillance societies are destined to fade away, just as societies of sovereignty and discipline once disappeared, to be replaced by societies of automation. This will be driven by the development of the informational paradigm, which has generated a self–operating network grounded in a decentralized system of chaos and complexity.