This may be true, but perhaps benign. Technology in general has made the world a smaller place. This is quite obvious in the context of travel across distances. But consider living in a small village where everyone knows everybody else, and also what is going on in the lives of other people in the village. This village is effectively a surveillance society but we don't frown upon it. AI makes it possible to do it on a global scale.
AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’
171–180 of 201 posts
Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’
#172Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
How is it not? Cambridge dictionary: the careful watching of a person or place, especially by the police or army, because of a crime that has happened or is expected.
Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
If what Google does - closely observing us, collecting the data for further analysis, often without our knowledge or permission - is not surveillance, then what it is? Which word should we use to describe these activities?
I would say a "data-driven business model". Google is not "closely observing us" in the sense that a policeman surveilles a criminal. And it's not without our knowledge or permission. Google won't learn much about you unless you volunteer the information. At worse, it might learn that a certain browser visited X or Y website (until the browser cookies are cleared). Plus, they collect data to improve their services and serve relevant ads, not to put people in jail.
Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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?
> so we agree facial recognition will be dramatically amped up
It may be. Not that it will be.
> we agree AI-based polygraphing will exist
We didn't mention lie detecting, but no - I was saying liar detection, which was the thing from the article, also sounds like fear-mongering.
> you don’t think AI-identify-bad-intentions-button exists currently
Yes.
> therefore we are supposed to doubt that AI is a major surveillance hazard
No, that's a category error. "Major" and "hazard" are far too vague to decide upon. Will AI be used in surveillance in some capacity? Of course - it likely has been for decades, depending on how you define AI. But implying that you'll walk into a shop and be classified as a liar based on a video feed is not right. I understand websites need emotion for clicks, but I don't think it's right to do it this way.
Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’
#175Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
> People use it as a label for Google's business model simply because it has a negative connotation This reads like parody. Let's say that states and police forces alone (for the sake of the argument) used to do surveillance. For the last 2 decades, Google, Facebook, and co ALSO collect data in 1000x the times the data breadth and detail than even Stazi was capable to collect, including collecting data covertly, and…
What do you mean by abuse? Can you name one instance of someone's life being negatively impacted by Google's data collection?
> Not to mention that, beyond the surveillance they do for their private interests and business, even the "states and goverments" vs "Google and Facebook" are not even remotely separate from surveillance by states and police forces, cooperating, sharing data, or even ordered to give surveillance data, to both.
I'll grant you that, but I wouldn't call that their business. They probably would do without if they could.
Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’
#176I 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.
Not really since besides a state, big tech has more data on anyone else and they will sell the product ( end user ) to the customer ( advertisers ). Why do they have to know what's in your local network and all the other apps in your operating system?
Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
> People use it as a label for Google's business model simply because it has a negative connotation This reads like parody. Let's say that states and police forces alone (for the sake of the argument) used to do surveillance. For the last 2 decades, Google, Facebook, and co ALSO collect data in 1000x the times the data breadth and detail than even Stazi was capable to collect, including collecting data covertly, and…
What do you mean by abuse? Can you name one instance of someone's life being negatively impacted by Google's data collection? > Not to mention that, beyond the surveillance they do for their private interests and business, even the "states and goverments" vs "Google and Facebook" are not even remotely separate from surveillance by states and police forces, cooperating, sharing data, or even ordered to give surveillan…
>What do you mean by abuse? Can you name one instance of someone's life being negatively impacted by Google's data collection?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy_concerns_regarding_Goo...
https://fortune.com/2019/01/28/google-iab-sensitive-profiles...
Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’
#178“There’s no way to make these systems without human labor at the level of informing the ground truth of the data — reinforcement learning with human feedback, which again is just kind of tech-washing precarious human labor. It’s thousands and thousands of workers paid very little, though en masse it’s very expensive, and there’s no other way to create these systems, full stop,” she explained.
I'm suddenly curious to see man-hour comparisons between these kinds of endeavors and, say, building the Great Pyramids.
Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’
#179Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you think it's impossible to regulate? There's a _long_ list of unlawful things that are technically possible, sometimes trivial even. Only _because_ they are possible in the first place, are there laws against them. This process seems slow compared to a human lifespan, but lots of terrible things people used to do got outlawed eventually.
> Why do you think it's impossible to regulate? There are three reasons: - once it's widespread - it's a standard (targeted ads, cookie tracking, SEO) - we'd need a lot of infrastructure to track all the data recorded, where it goes, how it is processed, etc. etc.. And if a big company is caught.. they'll pay fines for being caught and let away to continue the same shady practices, as we have seen with privacy scanda…
> we'd need a lot of infrastructure to track all the data recorded, where it goes, how it is processed, etc. etc..
You just need to punish the people using the data. If you can then track down where they got the data from, that's a bonus. And if you can track down where those second ones got their data from, that's an extra bonus. But everything after the people using it is optional.
Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’
#180Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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.
How is it not? Cambridge dictionary: the careful watching of a person or place, especially by the police or army, because of a crime that has happened or is expected.
Because this is the description of the act "the careful watching of a person or place"
This is a non-inclusive list of reasons why and whom may perform the act "especially by the police or army", "for the purposes of catching criminals"
There are many acts that are defined by 'who' does it. The act of surveillance is not one of them. For example a private investigator can surveil you. A business can do the same by intentional action (for example selling hidden tracking devices to ensure they can find you if you are kidnapped) or unexpected action (your cell phone reports back to a server every 30 seconds of an exact GPS location of where you are).