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China using big data to detain people before crime is committed

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Re: China using big data to detain people before crime is committed

#71

Post by anthonyleecook »

ejlangev wrote: post #57

It's a shame we moved a lot of the US industrial base to an authoritarian and potentially hostile country like China. A bit scary to think of the generation or two of people who won't have the knowledge to manufacture things should they ever need to because of conflict in some form. Seems like it reduces any leverage the US has for holding China accountable for much that it does.

We need some investors to band up and recreate the hardware environment in Shenzhen. There would be a lot of money made that way too so not sure why there wouldn’t be one in Nevada or Arizona or something.

Re: China using big data to detain people before crime is committed

#73

Post by mamon »

Cacti wrote: post #37
arnaudsm wrote: post #32

The NSA is already doing the same thing https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2016/02/the-n... Machine learning is still a black box, and politicians don't seem to understand this.

There is a massive difference: the NSA/USG isn't using that against it's own citizens.

Of course it is, you are just unaware of it, because, unlike its Chinese counterpart, NSA chooses to maintain illusion of freedom and democracy.

Re: China using big data to detain people before crime is committed

#74

Post by yanaccount »

duncan_bayne wrote: post #24
Dangeranger wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, but it's the world we deserve by allowing mass surveillance and the police state to exist.

Allowing? People will literally pay for it to happen. Witness smartphones, social media, smart homes, ...

The blame should not be on people who choose not to forgo the comfort of modern technology, it should be on a state which abuses that technology for dubious purposes.

Re: China using big data to detain people before crime is committed

#75

Post by Nokinside »

refurb wrote: post #70
Nokinside wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Habeas Corpus has been suspended several times in US history. Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses Grant and FDR suspended habeas corpus. Habeas corpus after 9/11 is not what it used to be. ACLU has been fighting several cases of clear violations.

Yes, but the key difference is we have separation of gov't power and institutions to actually challenge some of these things. When the gov't oversteps it's bounds and they get their hand slapped by the courts, that's the system working . Our gov't is made up of fallible humans, thus we're never going to get to the point where our rights aren't under threat. Compare that to China, where your best hope is you know some…

Military Commissions Act seems to have passed the scrutiny of both legal and political part of the system. The legal battle has shifted permanently. It's now over details in particular cases, not over the generic principle.

The notion of enemy is now in the US criminal law. The President of the United States has now the power to designate either US citizens for foreign citizens as enemy. The way it's defined includes not just combatants, but also "persons who are engaged in conflict against the USA" in general level. Expressing solidarity is enough.

Re: China using big data to detain people before crime is committed

#77

Post by visarga »

polskibus wrote: post #11

As described by Martin Kleppmann at the end of his great book, big data analytics, when used without proper regulation, creates a downward spiral. Western world enforced rules against discrimination based on sex, race, etc., yet everyone seems fine when it's the algorithm spotting and executing on the biases, which statistically are fine, but nevertheless, may be wrong in many individual cases.

You're spot on. They are just using biases to sentence people to brainwashing camps.

Re: China using big data to detain people before crime is committed

#78

Post by drb91 »

srcmap wrote: post #46
cdepman wrote: post #22

We’re on our way there too in the US: https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/27/17054740/palantir-predict...

If someone is taking fly training of commercial jet without wanting to learn how to land the plane, I absolutely want the government to find out why. Same for someone who want to purchase large quality of fertilizer for no real needs.

This is crazy. The government is not a wall between you and what scares you; that is what politicians want you to think. The wall is never high enough; it is never deep enough; there are never enough cameras; we need better people deciding what is OK to do on camera and what is not OK.

This is all very fine to want, but it's an entirely different conception of government than the one described in the constitution. It's a government much closer to the one in Russia, or China, or Turkey, or North Korea. While it may be used to, in part, fight crime, the line item that justifies the surveillance state is the ability to invest in a guarantee of power.

Trying to turn the US into this state is just going to lead to abuse of power, abuse of people without voices, and a much more wasteful budget: infrastructure spending by investment in paranoia, with a return of more power by fear. Literally government by terrorism.

Re: China using big data to detain people before crime is committed

#79

Post by duncan_bayne »

yanaccount wrote: post #74
duncan_bayne wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Allowing? People will literally pay for it to happen. Witness smartphones, social media, smart homes, ...

The blame should not be on people who choose not to forgo the comfort of modern technology, it should be on a state which abuses that technology for dubious purposes.

No-one (perhaps except folks like Stallman?) is blameless here.

One of the responsibilities of citizenship is to preserve your liberty against encroachment by State and private actors. Neglecting to consider that is a moral failure, and one I've been guilty of in the past.

I'm not saying that it's necessarily immoral to, say, have a FB account. But it is to have one without considering the implications and acting accordingly.

Re: China using big data to detain people before crime is committed

#80

Post by jsnider3 »

threatofrain wrote: post #63
cdepman wrote: post #22

We’re on our way there too in the US: https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/27/17054740/palantir-predict...

Predictive policing is old, and has been done in consultation with universities before. There are papers on predicting crime vs criminals, predicting by time and address, predicting by age, etc., including discussion on whether this leads to uneven enforcement on minorities. It would be surprising to expect law enforcement to go towards less statistical and software usage. What would be new would be formal preemptive…

Formal preemptive detentive by generic factors is what is described in the article.
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