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Microsoft president: Orwell’s 1984 could happen in 2024

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Microsoft president: Orwell’s 1984 could happen in 2024

#131

Post by chewz »

Jean-Philipe wrote: post #123
chewz wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the Stasi already had the capacity for that 40 years ago. I disagree. I haven't lived under Stasi but I have lived through Martial Law in Poland in 80s. Yes, when you have picked up a phone receiver you have been greeted with pre-recorded message that "your call could be recorded", there were tanks on the streets and secret police everywhere. But more or less you realized that state capacity is quite limited - poli…

> But more or less you realized that state capacity is quite limited From what I remember (it's been a while) this was actually also the case in the book. It's not like Big Brother watched you every time, and most of the time he didn't. But he could be watching anytime. That was the whole point of it. I lived under Stasi and yes, the means where limited, but just the threat alone was enough for most people to be caut…

True but there was safety in numbers. And freedom that you could experience in mass gathering.

In a street protest, on a strike, in a church, discussion club, samizdat. That is why the movement in Poland called itself Solidarity. The police could have easily break a strike in a single factory but were helpless when all factories in a city went on solidarity strike.

Just look at Hong-Kong today..

Re: Microsoft president: Orwell’s 1984 could happen in 2024

#132

Post by whoooooo123 »

hliyan wrote: post #2

Was Schmidt not the same person who said "If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place." in 2009?

Even if this quote was true, it would still miss the point. Privacy isn't the same thing as secrecy. There's a difference between "doing something you wouldn't want anyone to know" and "doing something you wouldn't want anyone to see"

"I know what you do in the bathroom, but you still lock the door."

Re: Microsoft president: Orwell’s 1984 could happen in 2024

#133

Post by unishark »

SapporoChris wrote: post #84
paxys wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is exactly what it is though. If this was 1940 and China was building a nuclear bomb, you wouldn't fight them by disarming yourself and promoting peace. You would build a bigger bomb first. If USA and others tightly regulate tech, and AI advancements in China continue unchecked, then in a few decades there will be no resisting them from doing literally whatever.

"You would build a bigger bomb" Or, you would make the enemy's bomb ineffective. I understand that history went with build a bigger bomb. But honestly, that's not the only option. It's a disservice to everyone to think that arms race is the only answer.

AI is not only a weapon though, it is literally intelligence itself. So it can be both the bomb and the means to counter the bomb.

It's basically the same as saying we need to match their advances in science.

Re: Microsoft president: Orwell’s 1984 could happen in 2024

#134

Post by swader999 »

_y5hn wrote: post #127
swader999 wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it's practically being used to restrict travel, employment and access to many things. What if you've already developed immunity through infection? Why should you be forced into it? This received emergency authorisation when public debate on the matter was heavily censored through government and big tech partnerships and complicit centralized media outlets. If treatments with drugs like invermectin were given…

Vaccine status may grant more freedoms to more people, but can only happen with some degree of controlling the masses. You have to at some point, see beyond your nose tip.

Nobody is being given anything. We already have freedom of movement, association and equal access to education and employment. Now through this passport they will be taking freedom from those without.

And of course it will be scanned and forever noted on entry every where its asked for.

Re: Microsoft president: Orwell’s 1984 could happen in 2024

#135

Post by redis_mlc »

hooande wrote: post #24
redis_mlc wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just so people have a ready response for Schmidt's thoughtless statement: 1) I don't want potentially naked fotos or conversations of my family online. Do you? 2) Regulations and customs change over time. Something ok 10 years ago can be damning tomorrow. 3) How do you maintain privacy of medical and lawyer conversations when anything can be released without permission? Ironically, I had the same conversation with a…

The ideal case is not sending naked fotos online, if you'd be embarrassed by that kind of thing. and I would never trust any kind of technology to keep medical or legal secrets. I generally assume that anything I submit to a remote server may be compromised and released at some point. You always have to place absolute trust in someone, even Google. It doesn't matter what Eric Schmidt says. You're trusting dozens of c…

Alexa, Siri, Snapchat, Zoom, malware apps and Ring cameras.

If teens - whatever their parents don't use yet.

Whoosh.

Re: Microsoft president: Orwell’s 1984 could happen in 2024

#136

Post by jb1991 »

I recently installed a Chinese-made washing machine in my house. When I bought it, it came with a $100 cashback offer. After installation, it came time to claim that $100, I went to the website, and to my amazement, I had to give up quite a bit of personal information, certainly more than you would expect for the purposes of a washing machine. This information was submitted via a form directly to a Chinese company. So I’m convinced they used the cashback offer as a façade to gather my personal details, to link my ID up to whatever they’re recording from me in my house through the machine. So now I occasionally say things directly to the machine, with the expectation that the Chinese government is listening.

Re: Microsoft president: Orwell’s 1984 could happen in 2024

#137

Post by dvfjsdhgfv »

postpawl wrote: post #61
lsy wrote: post #32

It seems that some tech executives, having more money than any person could spend, often seek what they see as the next level of accomplishment, which is proximity to power and decisions over life and death. That shows up as this sort of militaristic nationalism along lines that conveniently happen to align with their claimed expertise. Of course neither of the executives interviewed in this article really knows that…

You don’t think AI is a “threat to democracy”? I think the threat isn’t just AI being used by governments to control citizens. Advertising companies want to influence behavior too, and their customers are mostly private corporations. They already have a lot of power and advertising is a $100+ Billion dollar industry for a reason.. it works. If you haven’t seen it, I’d encourage you to watch Can’t Get You Out of My He…

> You don’t think AI is a “threat to democracy”?

First, we have to define what "AI" is. In the current context, it might be Machine Learning or a collection of algorithms defining what to display to a give user, for example. Both ML and algorithms are completely neutral by themselves, it is their use that makes them "dangerous". You can use it for decades, e.g. collecting data from sensors and classifying them, an nothing bad happens.

But the moment a human being connects a software system to an actuator - news feed, an engine, a rocket, an x-ray machine - they explicitly take responsibility for the functioning of such a connected system. If it fails, putting the blame on "AI" is ridiculous.

Re: Microsoft president: Orwell’s 1984 could happen in 2024

#138

Post by frashelaw »

NoblePublius wrote: post #43

The NSA has been recording every phone call and storing every text message for at least three days since 2007 so I have no idea what this guy thinks he’s talking about.

Exactly, and these people are taking an idea about "1984" from an executive of a tech megacorporation that is just one of the many corporations that dominate and run our economy in their favor, at the expense of everyone else.

Re: Microsoft president: Orwell’s 1984 could happen in 2024

#139

Post by unishark »

redis_mlc wrote: post #11
chmod775 wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opinions and attitudes can change a lot in ten years.

Just so people have a ready response for Schmidt's thoughtless statement: 1) I don't want potentially naked fotos or conversations of my family online. Do you? 2) Regulations and customs change over time. Something ok 10 years ago can be damning tomorrow. 3) How do you maintain privacy of medical and lawyer conversations when anything can be released without permission? Ironically, I had the same conversation with a…

It doesn't seem fair to presume Schmidt forgot that people must use the bathroom and sometimes bathe or change clothes and such. To bring in a little good faith, perhaps we should amend Schmidt's statement to include the ending "...using Google's products". Then you are basically supporting what the statement says. One indeed shouldn't use their free cloud-based products for your sensitive communications with unlimited downside if there is a breach. You aren't paying them to take on that liability and they aren't promising the needed level of protection.

Re: Microsoft president: Orwell’s 1984 could happen in 2024

#140

Post by kbenson »

themacguffinman wrote: post #116
kbenson wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But isn't that begging the question? Couldn't we just as easily say "beating China at not starting the zombie apocalypse" requires ensuring China doesn't invest in weird chemical experimentation with death and voodoo? We're taking as a given that China's end state is a repressive dystopia, just as we would have to take as a given that China would start a zombie apocalypse. The only difference in one is seen as patent…

Considering that China's current state is a repressive dystopia, it's quite hard to compare the fairly mundane prediction that this will continue to a claim about zombies that contradicts available scientific evidence. I feel like I'm going crazy seeing people make absurd comparisons like this. Do you honestly not see the difference between an inference based on China's current behavior and ... zombies? Are you playi…

> Considering that China's current state is a repressive dystopia

Is it? I know that's how it's presented, and it's easy to assume that presentation is accurate, but do most the people living there see it that way? I don't doubt it's a repressive dystopia for those that are repressed, and that's horrible, but does that make it a repressive dystopia overall? Because I'm pretty sure there's quite a number of different subgroups I could pick out in the U.S. that would say we live in a repressive dystopia already.

> I feel like I'm going crazy seeing people make absurd comparisons like this.

It was made absurd on purpose, to not muddy the waters with a comparison to something that people could have actual questions about.

> Are you playing at some broader rhetorical point

I thought that was obvious with the "begging the question" part, which literally means that something is being used as fact that hasn't been proven.

I'm not saying China is great, or better than the U.S. or west or anything. What I am saying is that when people throw around statements that assume China's natural end state, and what they are moving towards right now, is a repressive dystopia, I'm going to want to see some evidence or reasoning to back it up. Otherwise how do I know it's not just "everything I've read in USA Today the last few years leads me to believe that, therefore it must be true"?

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