Earlier quoted context omitted.
I despise IBM but how is that grift?
The UK routinely buys software that doesn’t work for large amounts of money. The only reasonable explanation is corruption.
Mostly apathy. "need to spend this year's budget"
IBM promised to back off facial recognition, then signed a $70M contract for it
21–30 of 132 posts
Re: IBM promised to back off facial recognition, then signed a $70M contract for it
#22I think it s impossible to hold off the oncoming onslaught of Big State powered by AI , but i think we are doing a very bad job of telling the public to prepare for it, starting with AI powered online manipulation
Just tell folks on the right that ai is going to take their rights, freedoms and guns and let them run with it. I am not joking, the only way to "wake" people up is to leverage those that, oddly enough, have predicted many of the upcoming changes. The issues with their conspiracy theories are with the how, whom, and why. There's no cabal of folks injecting people with microcips to control them and covid wasn't it. It…
the logical endpoint of that is some crazy guy shooting up a pizza place, not civil society taking back control of technology pointed at them. Ever played the original Deus Ex? There's a reason Musk on his Bob Page arc loves to stoke conspiracy nonsense and it isn't because it produces effective, rational governance reigning powerful people in
Re: IBM promised to back off facial recognition, then signed a $70M contract for it
#23Who the hell is signing a large contract with IBM and expecting them to deliver working tech? > IBM signed a $69.8 million (£54.7 million) contract with the British government Ah, just good old fashioned grift. Nothing to be concerned about. The money is being spent on executive bonuses and government official kickbacks, not developing facial recognition.
> Who the hell is signing a large contract with IBM and expecting them to deliver working tech?
Considering they have tens of billions in revenue every year, a lot of people. But what's IBM's niche? I remember they promoted watson a few years back and nothing seems to have come out of that. IBM is such an iconic name in tech but I don't remember them doing anything noteworthy for a long time. At this point IBM is just famous for being famous.
Re: IBM promised to back off facial recognition, then signed a $70M contract for it
#24Who the hell is signing a large contract with IBM and expecting them to deliver working tech? > IBM signed a $69.8 million (£54.7 million) contract with the British government Ah, just good old fashioned grift. Nothing to be concerned about. The money is being spent on executive bonuses and government official kickbacks, not developing facial recognition.
How is that a grift? They'll get like 3 meetings with that contract!
Re: IBM promised to back off facial recognition, then signed a $70M contract for it
#25Who the hell is signing a large contract with IBM and expecting them to deliver working tech? > IBM signed a $69.8 million (£54.7 million) contract with the British government Ah, just good old fashioned grift. Nothing to be concerned about. The money is being spent on executive bonuses and government official kickbacks, not developing facial recognition.
> Who the hell is signing a large contract with IBM and expecting them to deliver working tech? Considering they have tens of billions in revenue every year, a lot of people. But what's IBM's niche? I remember they promoted watson a few years back and nothing seems to have come out of that. IBM is such an iconic name in tech but I don't remember them doing anything noteworthy for a long time. At this point IBM is jus…
watsonx.ai where have you been !
Re: IBM promised to back off facial recognition, then signed a $70M contract for it
#26I think it s impossible to hold off the oncoming onslaught of Big State powered by AI , but i think we are doing a very bad job of telling the public to prepare for it, starting with AI powered online manipulation
The general public won’t care until it impacts them personally. Time to buy that country estate surrounded by trees so the surveillance state can’t see the finer details of your eyes with their AI cameras
there is no "general public" just like there is no 2.5 children. More than 1 million working adults in the USA are in uniform or under non-disclosure to security sensitive things.. you will never address those people in the same breath as lowest-common-denominator fear mongering, as is immediately and unwisely suggested here by "good" people.. oh by the way .. "caring about human rights" people will start to behave in a mob like any other mob.. in many cases.. crowds make bad decisions.. etc
Re: IBM promised to back off facial recognition, then signed a $70M contract for it
#27I think it s impossible to hold off the oncoming onslaught of Big State powered by AI , but i think we are doing a very bad job of telling the public to prepare for it, starting with AI powered online manipulation
Just tell folks on the right that ai is going to take their rights, freedoms and guns and let them run with it. I am not joking, the only way to "wake" people up is to leverage those that, oddly enough, have predicted many of the upcoming changes. The issues with their conspiracy theories are with the how, whom, and why. There's no cabal of folks injecting people with microcips to control them and covid wasn't it. It…
alas they are very selective about which rights they are concerned about. e.g. very territorial about physical space, but largely numb to big tech surveillance.
but indeed this issue is not aligned with traditional political divisions. there is simply no meaningful part of society that is better of from this large scale digital surveillance that is being inflicted against all people's best interest. the only beneficiary is the small oligarchy that is orchestrating this.
Re: IBM promised to back off facial recognition, then signed a $70M contract for it
#28Who the hell is signing a large contract with IBM and expecting them to deliver working tech? > IBM signed a $69.8 million (£54.7 million) contract with the British government Ah, just good old fashioned grift. Nothing to be concerned about. The money is being spent on executive bonuses and government official kickbacks, not developing facial recognition.
I think the reason for this is probably more:
1. Risk aversion. "Nobody gets fire for buying IBM" still has some truth to it. Even if they don't deliver, the fact that IBM is one of (or the?) largest consulting firms in the world is in itself a defense for selecting them.
2. The government bid process. I don't know how this works in the UK, but in the US you have to jump through a lot of hoops if you want to work on government contract, so the same few firms tend to get selected a lot not because they are good, but because they know how to work the process.
Re: IBM promised to back off facial recognition, then signed a $70M contract for it
#29Who the hell is signing a large contract with IBM and expecting them to deliver working tech? > IBM signed a $69.8 million (£54.7 million) contract with the British government Ah, just good old fashioned grift. Nothing to be concerned about. The money is being spent on executive bonuses and government official kickbacks, not developing facial recognition.
IBM are just a big body shop contracting firm, like Accenture or Cap Gemini . I don’t think they’re any better or worse than the others
Re: IBM promised to back off facial recognition, then signed a $70M contract for it
#30Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just tell folks on the right that ai is going to take their rights, freedoms and guns and let them run with it. I am not joking, the only way to "wake" people up is to leverage those that, oddly enough, have predicted many of the upcoming changes. The issues with their conspiracy theories are with the how, whom, and why. There's no cabal of folks injecting people with microcips to control them and covid wasn't it. It…
the logical endpoint of that is some crazy guy shooting up a pizza place, not civil society taking back control of technology pointed at them. Ever played the original Deus Ex? There's a reason Musk on his Bob Page arc loves to stoke conspiracy nonsense and it isn't because it produces effective, rational governance reigning powerful people in
> the logical endpoint of that is some crazy guy shooting up a pizza place
That's the likely outcome if people are lead towards that outcome and if that's the only given option. And so far the only voices that validate their concerns are those that would benefit from such outcomes. Those that want a "better world" are too busy berrating those that have genuine concerns and as a result the only people they can take refuge in are those like Musk. It's time for genuine innovation and genuine conversation without losing track of the good in both sides.