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Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

nytimes.com

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Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#31

Post by jacquesm »

api wrote: post #26
Tenoke wrote: post #5

The technology isn't quite there, and Chinese law enforcement clearly exaggerates in order to maximize the current impact. However, we are very close to the point where everything could be tracked, and recorded in a usable way - including the exact location of most citizens at all times, discrepancies in utility bills, shopping, internet activity (except possibly for those few with impeccable OpSec, and even that for…

I've wondered for a while if what you describe might be the next dark age. The last one was built on the use of religion in tandem with feudal power. The new dark age replaces religion with surveillance and scientific propaganda and feudalism with corporatism.

There has been a war-on-science going on for quite a while now, if there is a dark age coming I would fully expect that to be the real origin.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#32

Post by ggm »

walrus01 wrote: post #18
nimrod0 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The vast majority of cameras in the US aren't feeding centralized recording/storage/analysis/monitoring centers. The $90 1080p cameras in your local 7-11 are probably feeding a box with a few 3TB HDDs in it on a shelf in the back room. Quite the opposite in China.

I have attended meetings discussing IoT and at one, the observation was made many of the cameras are deployed by private individuals, not the state. Private individuals want to surveil their own surroundings.

I can't explain why, I don't live in China. But I do notice many buildings in the cities I visit have thick strong window bars even up above the 5th floor. Maybe there is a strong concern about local petty crime?

I certainly don't disagree there is state surveillance, but I think you should be wary of assuming all devices sold in China as IoT web connected cameras are state cameras.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#33

Post by nimrod0 »

walrus01 wrote: post #19
nimrod0 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Oh, it's absolutely there, and your life is definitely crippled with a bad credit score in the US. But that's strictly financial . You can have an amazing FICO score and spend 24 hours a day shitposting bernie sanders memes on message boards, and trolling the hell of of every staff member of every trump appointee (within legal limits of not threatening anybody). Try the equivalent in China. It's a social credit score…

I understand the impulse to distinguish the two but there simply isn't as much distinction as you perhaps would like to believe. An apartment or a job aren't strictly financial, and while credit bureaus construct your scores out of mainly financial transactions at the moment, they have started out as much more, as I've mentioned, and they've always been looking for other non-financial but correlating variables from your life activities; can't find the link right now, but there was recently an internal whitepaper on such an algorithm using non-financial data.

And again, the US government does care about dissent and goes to great lengths to build files on what it considers potentially subversive forces that are essentially political dissidents. The same controlling impulses are there. And since the scaffolding is all there, the only things safeguarding against a dystopia are, firstly, the clear-headed and astute attention against various soft forms of social control, secondly the maintenance of decentralization as a virtue, and lastly the robust exercise of checks and balances that are nominally provided institutionally, and not, as your answer seems to imply, the intricacies of how certain scores are constructed.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#34

Post by walrus01 »

ggm wrote: post #32
walrus01 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of cameras in the US aren't feeding centralized recording/storage/analysis/monitoring centers. The $90 1080p cameras in your local 7-11 are probably feeding a box with a few 3TB HDDs in it on a shelf in the back room. Quite the opposite in China.

I have attended meetings discussing IoT and at one, the observation was made many of the cameras are deployed by private individuals, not the state. Private individuals want to surveil their own surroundings. I can't explain why, I don't live in China. But I do notice many buildings in the cities I visit have thick strong window bars even up above the 5th floor. Maybe there is a strong concern about local petty crime…

I'm not assuming that - there are undoubtedly a huge number of privately owned cameras in China, as there are just about anywhere else in the world that people can afford to put 802.3af/PoE cameras stuck somewhere on a wall, fed from one cat5e cable, that cost $65 to $120 a piece. But as for cameras in major public locations with pedestrian traffic, I would bet that a much higher percentage of cameras in China are actually owned/controlled by a government entity than in the US.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#35

Post by api »

jacquesm wrote: post #31
api wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've wondered for a while if what you describe might be the next dark age. The last one was built on the use of religion in tandem with feudal power. The new dark age replaces religion with surveillance and scientific propaganda and feudalism with corporatism.

There has been a war-on-science going on for quite a while now, if there is a dark age coming I would fully expect that to be the real origin.

During the last dark age there was a war on religion, and precisely because control of religion was a major cornerstone of power. Being into Pagan, occult, non-mainstream Christian (e.g. Catharism, early Protestantism), or Judaism could get you jailed or killed in gruesome ways.

The "war on science" is not about stamping out science any more than the inquisition was about making people atheists. It's about eliminating lines of scientific inquiry that can be used to challenge power.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#36

Post by nimrod0 »

briandear wrote: post #27
tmalsburg2 wrote: post #2

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?

It’s not even close. A false equivalence. Assuming a camera represents a unit of surveillance, then that comparison might hold, but it’s what China actually does with that stuff that makes the difference. There is always this knee-jerk “What about the US?” every time there is an article like this. If you haven’t lived in China and actually lived within their system, it’s easy to take for granted the freedom Americans…

I wouldn't take the parent's statement as one of moral equivalency. I see it as a reminder to notice similar trends within and not rely so much on exceptionalism or the existing milieu to carry you through without effort, forever. Even Chinese society was at one point perfectly free, even if you have to go back two thousand years.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#37

Post by GyYZTfWBfQw »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #12
zavi wrote: post #3

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…

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4209256/

Colony, the TV series is a great representation of our dystopian future.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#38

Post by nine_k »

ggm wrote: post #32
walrus01 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of cameras in the US aren't feeding centralized recording/storage/analysis/monitoring centers. The $90 1080p cameras in your local 7-11 are probably feeding a box with a few 3TB HDDs in it on a shelf in the back room. Quite the opposite in China.

I have attended meetings discussing IoT and at one, the observation was made many of the cameras are deployed by private individuals, not the state. Private individuals want to surveil their own surroundings. I can't explain why, I don't live in China. But I do notice many buildings in the cities I visit have thick strong window bars even up above the 5th floor. Maybe there is a strong concern about local petty crime…

I suppose that strong bar on 5th floor may be a means to keep people inside, not prevent invasion from outside.

That is, it might be a safety measure preventing falling from a window. E.g. windows in my apartment used to have state-mandated bars because my daughter was small, and had to be prevented from falling from a window.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#39

Post by emptybits »

tmalsburg2 wrote: post #2

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?

Where is the NYT article about the US' dystopian dreams?

The NYT writes plenty of articles about US surveillance gone-too-far. Even a naive query like this: https://www.nytimes.com/search?query=surveillance turns up plenty of exposure on the issue.

At least in the USA, citizens can openly criticize and publish their government's corruption and failings and concerns about the surveillance state and abuses of power. Americans can do this without fear of unjust incarceration or worse. And the USA maintains, with all its flaws, a democratic process which requires its politicians to answer to the public and risk not being (re)elected.

China doesn't have (and never really had?) these features. I think this is important. I write this as a non-American and one who often criticizes American policy.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#40

Post by coldtea »

mc32 wrote: post #28
jknz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dissidents and revolutionaries would hardly be able to do much. Hence the scary question: Once the technology is available (now) and complete surveillance is implemented (soon), is there a going back?

This is a good question. I think the answer is "yes" with proviso that it would most likely come from the top. The CCP, is not exactly a monolith. It has factions, some get suppressed, some come to prominence. One that saw the negative aspects as being too negative would have to come to prominence to undo the overreach.

Isn't it far more likely, given all we know, that western governments and elites will follow lead?

They are already heavy surveillance, and have a long history of suppressing dissidents (from labor massacres to McCarthyism, and from the '68 Democratic Convention and Kent State, to black rights demonstrations, OWS, and such -- to name but a few).

If they have such tools at their hands, they'll use them.

It's not a love for freedom that doesn't let them, but that without full enforcement, they risk having such measure come against them. But once full enforcement is feasible...

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