Beyond the ability to access deep personal information through extraction, the dream sharing device allows Cobb and his team to create dreams within dreams and ultimately plant an idea in Robert Fischer’s mind that will lead him to dissolve his inherited company. This ability to manipulate powerful individuals grants the users of the device an extraordinary control of society. While the inception of Mal and Robert Fischer are the only two instances presented in the movie, one may consider inception’s broader applications, from potential political manipulation to corporate domination to even large-scale social engineering. Technology, thus, is presented as a means to unreasonable and potentially dangerous power in Inception. 

From the very beginning of the film, Inception explores how technology can impact privacy. While initially used to train the military, the dream-sharing technology becomes used for extraction, stealing information from people’s subconscious, which is an unethical act according to Kantian ethics as people are used as a means to an end.

The movie takes the breach of personal information privacy further through the concept of inception: planting a thought within someone’s subconscious such that they are not only unaware of the inception but also take actions according to the thought. Thus, the movie focuses on the use of technology to invade what can be thought of as people’s last personal privacy.

The dream-sharing device allows a person’s present environment to be architected by another person. The architect develops a world that a person’s subconscious is able to fill in outside of the person’s control. This further emphasizes the loss of personal autonomy. Even within their own dreams, although the dreamer may believe their environment is their own, the environment has already been developed and planned from them; technology in Inception has led to a reshaping of people’s surroundings and ultimately, their beliefs. 

"Well dreams, they feel real when we're in them right? it's only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange" - Cobb 27:03

Reality is ambiguous in Inception. The only method for discerning between reality and the reality created by the dream-sharing device is the use of a totem, a special and unique item only the owner knows the specifications of. The totem allows a potential dreamer to check without external manipulation and with certainty whether they are in a dream or not. Cobb’s totem, a spinning top, however, is not actually owned by him; it was Mal’s totem and is later actually spun by Saito in limbo. Thus, the accuracy and certainty surrounding Cobb’s totem is presented as ambiguous, particularly at the end of the movie, where Cobb spins his totem but runs to his children without waiting to see if it falls. The movie ends as the top wavers but never actually falls.