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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

#211

Post by Noos »

wcrichton wrote: post #14

I’m a PhD student focusing on large scale video analysis. It’s an unfortunate fact that a lot of the applied research in this space is motivated by surveillance, particularly in systems, eg what’s come out of Microsoft’s efforts here [0]. A colleague who attended CVPR said most of the industry booths were either surveillance or self driving cars. I wish researchers would start to think more creatively about what we c…

If you asked them, they would effusively tell you all this surveillance is being used for the social good, and probably even believe it. Not many people are brutally honest about how their work destroys the social fabric, and will always point to the benefit it provides. Pornographers think its a social good if we would just be a little less uptight about sexuality, and more porn access is a solution.

And the same people who try to work for good can find hey've just armed others for evil by giving them tools.

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

#212

Post by forapurpose »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #59
mindfulhack wrote: post #56

India has almost the same population as China, and yet they don't choose to wield an authoritative system of population control and management with all the psychological techniques of manipulation and deception that China is. So how is India doing - worse than China? Every country is different so can't really be compared like that, but I am fascinated to see whether Chinese people will come to rise up against such an…

Democracy is not as efficient at getting things done as a well oiled top down organization. That's why the military and private companies aren't democracies.

> Democracy is not as efficient at getting things done as a well oiled top down organization. That's why the military and private companies aren't democracies.

Democratic governments and countries are far wealthier, more efficient, and less corrupt than non-democracies.

> military

I don't know anyone who knows anything about militaries who thinks they are efficient. The US Dept of Defense, for example, is hardly renowned for efficiency.

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

#213

Post by coldtea »

api wrote: post #210
toss1 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, but that is most definitely NOT the point of the anti-science propaganda (moon landing is a hoax, chemtrails, flat earth, etc.++). The point of that nonsense is to sow distrust in all institutions, especially science. Since the susceptible people have no real idea about how science works, it's just swapping out one belief structure or another (even tho it's promoted as 'think for yourself', that doesn't work if…

I disagree about the direction of cause and effect here. The distrust comes first, then people go for nutty "alternative fact" stuff. We have many reasons to distrust our institutions. Trust is hard to earn and easy to lose. For starters in my life span I've watched us be consciously lied into one major $1T+ war, a series of bank bailouts that enriched those responsible for a financial crisis at the expense of the ge…

>I disagree about the direction of cause and effect here. The distrust comes first, then people go for nutty "alternative fact" stuff.

Exactly what I tried to say above.

One can ask eg. why people trusted science (and revered scientists) more in 50s and 60s US.

It wasn't because they were less religious then, obviously.

It was because they didn't have many chances, decade after decade, to get cynical.

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

#214

Post by 394549 »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #156
sonnyblarney wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" elevators, convenience stores etc. Red light cameras are everywhere. I haven't seen a backlash." 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 r…

> 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. Not yet.

>>> " elevators, convenience stores etc. Red light cameras are everywhere. I haven't seen a backlash."

>> 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.

> Not yet.

That an ominous-sounding, yet totally empty and meaningless response. Most of those cameras are privately owned and operated, and would be incredibly difficult integrate into a centralized state surveillance system. We're mostly talking systems you can buy yourself at Costco:

https://www.costco.com/Night-Owl-8-Channel-5MP-Extreme-HD-DV...

Furthermore, a "backlash" in the case of cameras in "elevators, convenience stores etc." would have to be a backlash against private photography.

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

#215

Post by worldexplorer »

walrus01 wrote: post #80
telltruth wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are confusing incompetence with benevolence. if India had money and AI PhDs anywhere even half way close to China, politicians there would have rushed to implement social credit system and it would have been called "Karma Card". It would have promise to improve security for women getting raped and people getting robed. I haven't studied Indian constitution myself but I have been told that its one of the shittiest…

Look at the disaster of data breaches from the Aadhar card deployment as an example of what can go wrong. It's a heady mixture of localized corruption and incompetence. https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=aad...

Not a single proven data breach. All claims are based on downloaded aadhar data by third party. But they do need to step up their security game.

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

#216

Post by toss1 »

api wrote: post #210
toss1 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, but that is most definitely NOT the point of the anti-science propaganda (moon landing is a hoax, chemtrails, flat earth, etc.++). The point of that nonsense is to sow distrust in all institutions, especially science. Since the susceptible people have no real idea about how science works, it's just swapping out one belief structure or another (even tho it's promoted as 'think for yourself', that doesn't work if…

I disagree about the direction of cause and effect here. The distrust comes first, then people go for nutty "alternative fact" stuff. We have many reasons to distrust our institutions. Trust is hard to earn and easy to lose. For starters in my life span I've watched us be consciously lied into one major $1T+ war, a series of bank bailouts that enriched those responsible for a financial crisis at the expense of the ge…

Right, the mistrust creates the fertile soil on which these conspiracy theories can grow & spread. And I completely agree that we have massive legitimate cause for mistrust.

But they don't create & promote the theories, then weaponize the believers.

E.g., you and I don't watch the scams, then go out & produce videos about how the world is flat, jet condensation trail are chemical sprays to kill us all, etc., etc..

That comes from sources truing to manipulate & weaponize the ambient discontent.

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

#217

Post by bamboozled »

nojvek wrote: post #208
Razengan wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I fully expect this to keep getting advanced further. If they aren’t going to scale it back then I hope they go all the way with it. I hope they try to automate it and feed everything about everyone to a centralized AI. I hope they give it more and more control including the ability to direct military drones. I hope it then turns on them. Because the “smart stupid” people that implement well-intentioned malice like…

The way we treat animals, and the fact that most animals are going extinct because of unrelated human activity I.e humans don’t want it, but it’s a side effect of global warming. I’m a 100% sure, really advanced AI will be like that. Millions will suffer as a side effect for the gain of few.

I came here to say something similar, what we’ve done with factory farming is probably a glimpse into the future of what we plan on doing to each other. Why would it be any different ?

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

#218

Post by allenz »

naveen99 wrote: post #193
allenz wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government doesn't need to store the video, just the processed data, such as each person's history of locations, emotional states, interactions, and actions. Analysis is automated and thus scalable to the entire country. The underlying technology improves exponentially, so everyone underestimates the social impact that this will have in a decade.

So you agree storing 24/7 video on a billion people is not practical today. I don’t think processing is practical either. Processed output can be bigger than source depending on what you want to do and doesn’t remove the need to store original data to get value out of it always. Technology has improved exponentially in the past. No guarantee it will continue. Ram prices are double from a year ago. Gpu prices are also…

> Processed output can be bigger than source

I gave specific examples of processed outputs that are much smaller than source and are trivial to store today. No need to store the source video. For an example of what you can do with location history, see https://kieranhealy.org/blog/archives/2013/06/09/using-metad...

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

#219

Post by musage »

Razengan wrote: post #191
musage wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In your case, not egging it on would be a start even. There is no bottom to this abyss. There is no limit to the number of victims, the upper ceiling for that is 100%, or a gazillion people. There is no limit to their innocence, and no limit to the cruelty inflicted on them. There is no time limit, either. You say this because for you as an individual, it's easier rationalizing that non-resistance will somehow lead t…

Writing all that here is all well and good but until developers and engineers STOP caving in and bending over backwards to accommodate and help China implement that authoritarian nightmare, it's all just words that will not change anything.

I never caved in, and encourage others to resist, what more are you asking? Anything you're actually giving yourself? You won't get to action without thought and words, and this textbox literally doesn't allow any other input than words, so what's the point of complaining about that?

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

#220

Post by justicezyx »

whorleater wrote: post #132
justicezyx wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Xinjiang is like Afghanistan, its not a police state, its a war zone. You should not only pity the minority, the Han people are equally forced there because the government needs maintain control. These articles, do care about the people, but not all of them.

This comment is not only hilariously unfounded, but also straight up wrong. Where is the Helmand province equivalent in Xinjiang?

It's a war zone in the sense of the forces want to turn it into.

Of course, the strong arms of Chinese government stops that from happening.

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