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AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’

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Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’

#151

Post by ToucanLoucan »

coldtea wrote: post #142
lmpdev wrote: post #134

This thread is caught up in semantics, which is regrettable The thesis of the article should have been articulated "AI is disproportionately used as a surveillance technology owning to its computational requirements, the current state of industrial-user relations and the inability for legal systems to respond fast enough to protect individuals" Edit 1: I don't know how to make that more consise without losing the mea…

> and the inability for legal systems to respond fast enough to protect individuals Is it really inability when not doing so benefits you and your lobbying friends?

I mean it's probably not helped by the fact that most regulators can't even change their phone's wallpaper without help from an intern. But also they are not even remotely scrambling to solve the problem either so, both? Both.

Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’

#152

Post by insanitybit »

coldtea wrote: post #143
insanitybit wrote: post #123

I can run models locally on my laptop, so no, it isn't. I can even train it locally on my own data if I want to. Hyperbole really serves no purpose when it's so extreme. Instead of talking about the merits of "how can this technology be abused?" you're putting everyone else on the defensive, having to say "I'm not abusing it". Like, > AI is a way, I think, to entrench and expand the surveillance business model,” she…

> I can run models locally on my laptop, so no, it isn't. Which is irrelevant if tens of thousands of other AIs, from entities with 4-5 orders of magnitude more times the resources and power over the economy/society/country than you use them for surveillance and to optimize to your detriment. The claim was never was about the logical or practical impossibility of AI to also be used otherwise. And facial recognition i…

> The claim was never was about the logical or practical impossibility of AI to also be used otherwise.

Well, yeah, it actually was the claim. It's literally the headline and I even quoted directly from the article where they say that there is literally 100% overlap between AI and surveillance. If you want to say "that was hyperbole", congrats, you've arrived at the premise of my comment.

Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’

#153

Post by prewett »

coldtea wrote: post #142
lmpdev wrote: post #134

This thread is caught up in semantics, which is regrettable The thesis of the article should have been articulated "AI is disproportionately used as a surveillance technology owning to its computational requirements, the current state of industrial-user relations and the inability for legal systems to respond fast enough to protect individuals" Edit 1: I don't know how to make that more consise without losing the mea…

> and the inability for legal systems to respond fast enough to protect individuals Is it really inability when not doing so benefits you and your lobbying friends?

Cynicism isn't insight.

Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’

#154

Post by coldtea »

insanitybit wrote: post #152
coldtea wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can run models locally on my laptop, so no, it isn't. Which is irrelevant if tens of thousands of other AIs, from entities with 4-5 orders of magnitude more times the resources and power over the economy/society/country than you use them for surveillance and to optimize to your detriment. The claim was never was about the logical or practical impossibility of AI to also be used otherwise. And facial recognition i…

> The claim was never was about the logical or practical impossibility of AI to also be used otherwise. Well, yeah, it actually was the claim. It's literally the headline and I even quoted directly from the article where they say that there is literally 100% overlap between AI and surveillance. If you want to say "that was hyperbole", congrats, you've arrived at the premise of my comment.

Ever heard of nuance and context?

>If you want to say "that was hyperbole", congrats, you've arrived at the premise of my comment.

The premise of the comment was more like saying a headline like "WWII is deadly for Europe" is BS because Switzerland was just fine.

Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’

#155

Post by coldtea »

prewett wrote: post #153
coldtea wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and the inability for legal systems to respond fast enough to protect individuals Is it really inability when not doing so benefits you and your lobbying friends?

Cynicism isn't insight.

Actually it is insight. Much closer to the facts on the ground than the opposite. It is a take informed by actual experience of reality, as opposed to boy-scout naivety.

Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’

#156

Post by [deleted] »

insanitybit wrote: post #123

I can run models locally on my laptop, so no, it isn't. I can even train it locally on my own data if I want to. Hyperbole really serves no purpose when it's so extreme. Instead of talking about the merits of "how can this technology be abused?" you're putting everyone else on the defensive, having to say "I'm not abusing it". Like, > AI is a way, I think, to entrench and expand the surveillance business model,” she…

[deleted]

Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’

#157

Post by pixl97 »

olalonde wrote: post #132
insanitybit wrote: post #123

I can run models locally on my laptop, so no, it isn't. I can even train it locally on my own data if I want to. Hyperbole really serves no purpose when it's so extreme. Instead of talking about the merits of "how can this technology be abused?" you're putting everyone else on the defensive, having to say "I'm not abusing it". Like, > AI is a way, I think, to entrench and expand the surveillance business model,” she…

The term "surveillance business model" itself is a serious abuse of language. Surveillance is something done by states and police forces, usually to catch criminals or suppress dissent. People use it as a label for Google's business model simply because it has a negative connotation. It's a cheap tactic in my opinion.

>Surveillance is something done by states and police forces

I will have to disagree here, that is not the dictionary definition of the word. So attempting to call out a serious abuse of language while doing the same thing is definitely an interesting take.

Just like governments can abuse their position, so do corporations. Google absolutely has surveilled society at large and been caught and fined for doing so.

Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’

#158

Post by beepbooptheory »

insanitybit wrote: post #125
beepbooptheory wrote: post #119

What is it, in general, that makes people feel so motivated to defend AI? Every commenter can't be the CEO of some AI adjacent company.. Beyond that, why care so much? You can still use it even if its imperfect, you can even still use it while recognizing the fraught society it is being introduced into and the consequences of that introduction. And even in that recognition, we can be excited for what this stuff might…

> Isn't the "hacker" spirit one which itches to utilize and exploit? To be empowered and to be quick to kill your darlings? Isn't that the answer? Someone is saying "entire technology, broadly, is bad" and a bunch of people who love technologies, who want to use this for all sorts of things, are going "what? no". Who's subordinating? If I were to agree with the article would I be subordinate to techcrunch? No one is…

> Someone is saying "entire technology, broadly, is bad" and a bunch of people who love technologies, who want to use this for all sorts of things, are going "what? no".

Exactly what I am trying to talk about, that is, this concern over big T Technology, rather than simply caring about one technology or another because of what they do or enable. These constant injections of vague existential stakes, when did this start happening? I am not quite that old, but I know it hasn't always been quite like this.

Is it perhaps what we have landed on as an ideology to deal with economic insecurities in the tech world? Like the wider world is disillusioned with idea that one app or another can fix the world, and now stakeholders like us need to go all in on a more profound kind of technological determinism? Where Technology is a Pure Form that needs protection?

Or is it maybe just a new generation? Younger people did not see the same kind of technological advancements older people have, so "technology " feels somehow more monolithic, self-same to them?

And honestly, it is all more interesting than sad or annoying to me... And its not about AI in general, we saw the same kind of rhetoric with crypto stuff too. Its just a shift in the way are people are talking ultimately, and its very strange.

In general I know you are right about this forum, but it has been harder and harder to sift through lately, but maybe thats just me.

Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’

#159

Post by hooverd »

nine_k wrote: post #87

Science and technology are fundamentally about overcoming limitations and enabling previously impossible things. The process is ethically neutral, or oblivious if you will. Once you discover nitration, it will be used to produce both hunger-reducing fertilizers and devastating explosives. One cannot be discovered without the other, because they often involve the same chemical compounds. If you used said limitations t…

Technology is only neutral if it's not being applied, which is the whole point of technology.

Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’

#160

Post by ethanbond »

robertlagrant wrote: post #138
ethanbond wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay sure let’s take your “bad character” version: of course this is being done. Someone already linked to a commercially available version of it for shoplifters. Of course this type of technology was used to identify protestors in Hong Kong. It was probably also used to identify Jan 6’ers. And in fact you yourself already hedged that this probably is happening, “ But I doubt many people are trying this, except as a…

> Aka you believe that at least some people are already attempting this. This is getting painfully repetitious, but that was about facial recognition, not deciding if someone's a liar or is of bad character via AI. > Identifying protesters isn't the same as an AI filming you and deciding if you are of bad character. Same comment.

Got it so we agree facial recognition will be dramatically amped up; we agree AI-based polygraphing will exist; you don’t think AI-identify-bad-intentions-button exists currently and therefore we are supposed to doubt that AI is a major surveillance hazard.

Am I reading this right now?

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