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The article says there are four times as many cameras in China than in the US. This means approximately the same number of cameras per citizen. Where is the NYT article about the US' dystopian dreams?
Why dystopian? Seems subjective.
If this were strictly limited to 'matching terrorists and murderers faces out in public' - then I think some kind of argument could be made. But this goes way, way beyond that.
You know what would be better? A system where people are raised to be conscientious, responsible and fair - so you don't need to monitor them all day and night. It works pretty well in many places.
Even if you put all the privacy and social implications aside - I really don't think anyone in my neighbourhood would think that all of this would actually create a more peaceful neighbourhood or create better social outcomes at all. So it's like 'all the dystopian stuff' without really a lot of upside.
These tracking systems are being combined with China's "social credit score". You think Transunion, Experian and Equifax are creepy and wrong? Spend ten minutes researching this: https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=chi... Cameras with facial recognition are the tip of the iceberg. Through sufficiently strong government legal control, metadata such as mobile phone GPS and tower data can be correla…
The Big Three credit bureaus started exactly as a social credit system. They'd send snoops to keep tabs on you and collect gossip from your friends.
The difference here is how it's used: If you have a "bad" social credit score in China you can't participate in some activities, right up to buying a domestic train or airline ticket. Possibly because your online writings have angered somebody working for their Internet Police. Or you have expressed an unpopular political opinion. Or you're a Uyghur.
I wish researchers would start to think more creatively about what we can do with large video datasets and tools like face recognition. The least we can do is try to use this technology for social good. For example, a USC/Google team used computer vision tools to identify gender bias in modern cinema [1] (for my own research, we’re doing a similar kind of analysis on TV news at 100x the scale).
[0] https://www.usenix.org/conference/nsdi17/technical-sessions/...
[1] https://www.google.com/about/main/gender-equality-films/
The article says there are four times as many cameras in China than in the US. This means approximately the same number of cameras per citizen. Where is the NYT article about the US' dystopian dreams?
Correct. In the US, subway stations and buses, elevators, convenience stores etc. have video cameras. Electronic tolling gantries have been used to track vehicles. Red light cameras are everywhere. I haven't seen a backlash. It's always interesting to see a reference to a different society as a pedagogical tool to learn about something you might not like. The key step though is to see your own life from an outside pe…
Because those cameras are not used to track you, nor are you identified in those videos, nor is that data generally shared with anyone, and in most cases not the government.
In some areas, i.e. highways in LA, they do track license plates, and there is backlash and at least concern.
A 'timed security camera' is barely related to the idea of 'ubiquitous cameras that identify you and track your movements in a government DB and input into a social credit score' a system I might add citizens have no recourse to alter.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Big Three credit bureaus started exactly as a social credit system. They'd send snoops to keep tabs on you and collect gossip from your friends.
To the best of my knowledge, not having been alive at the time, credit cards in the US and Canada mostly started as department store cards, from the days when companies like Sears, Montgomery Ward, etc were dominant. You couldn't even get a card unless you were a man, women could get a card under their husband's name. The system evolved out of single-store charge cards to general purpose cards. The difference here is…
This article examines A.I., policing and authoritarianism from a Western perspective, rather than the local perspective. I think it would have served the article's balance to get a more local and relativist view on the intersectionality of the things they are looking to be objective about. That said, if the technology delivers on the potential the gov't claims, I think they will have to relax the laws or make it flex…
https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/02/asia/china-xinjiang-detention...
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/travel-0327201816200...
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/03/opinion/sunday/china-surv...
https://www.economist.com/briefing/2018/05/31/china-has-turn...
The article says there are four times as many cameras in China than in the US. This means approximately the same number of cameras per citizen. Where is the NYT article about the US' dystopian dreams?
Correct. In the US, subway stations and buses, elevators, convenience stores etc. have video cameras. Electronic tolling gantries have been used to track vehicles. Red light cameras are everywhere. I haven't seen a backlash. It's always interesting to see a reference to a different society as a pedagogical tool to learn about something you might not like. The key step though is to see your own life from an outside pe…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
To the best of my knowledge, not having been alive at the time, credit cards in the US and Canada mostly started as department store cards, from the days when companies like Sears, Montgomery Ward, etc were dominant. You couldn't even get a card unless you were a man, women could get a card under their husband's name. The system evolved out of single-store charge cards to general purpose cards. The difference here is…
If you have a "bad" US credit score you can't get an apartment, a job, a post-paid mobile plan, or any number of things nowadays that ask for your SSN. That's why identity theft can trash a person's life. Same with ad profiles built around your activities and movements. You think that's not being sold around commercially and the intelligence community hasn't obtained a copy? The scaffolding is all there.
It's a social credit score which gauges your compliance with societal and police-state defined norms.
Why dystopian? Seems subjective.
A system in which some authoritarian power literally watches your every move and subjects you to analysis, legal implications, social standing, and wherein citizens have no power or recourse to alter that system ... is fairly objectively 'dystopian'. If this were strictly limited to 'matching terrorists and murderers faces out in public' - then I think some kind of argument could be made. But this goes way, way beyon…