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AI and Mass Spying

schneier.com

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Re: AI and Mass Spying

#171

Post by jstarfish »

paganel wrote: post #158
bonyt wrote: post #42

I think another aspect of this is mass criminal law enforcement enabled by AI. Many of our criminal laws are written with the implicit assumption that it takes resources to investigate and prosecute a crime, and that this will limit the effective scope of the law. Prosecutorial discretion. Putting aside for the moment the (very serious) injustice that comes with the inequitable use of prosecutorial discretion, let's…

At that point some people will physically revolt, I know I will. We’re not that far away from said physical AI-related revolt anyway, and I do feel for the computer programmers here who will be the target of that physical violence, hopefully they knew what they were getting into.

Ha. You'd like to think so, but it's going to be awfully hard to coordinate resistance when the mass spying sweeps everyone up in a keyword-matching dragnet before the execution phase. This is the problem with every outgroup being labelled "terrorists."

Sabotage will be the name of the game at that point. Find ways to quietly confuse, poison, overwhelm and undermine the system without attracting the attention of the monitoring apparatus.

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#172

Post by tempsy »

trinsic2 wrote: post #62
bonyt wrote: post #42

I think another aspect of this is mass criminal law enforcement enabled by AI. Many of our criminal laws are written with the implicit assumption that it takes resources to investigate and prosecute a crime, and that this will limit the effective scope of the law. Prosecutorial discretion. Putting aside for the moment the (very serious) injustice that comes with the inequitable use of prosecutorial discretion, let's…

Yea this is a good point. If justice is executed by systems, rather than people (the end result from this scenario), we have lost the ability to challenge the process or the people involved in so many ways. It will make challenging how the law is executed almost impossible because there will be no person there to hold responsible.

It's not that "justice is executed by systems", it's that possible crimes will be flagged by AI systems for humans to then review.

eg AI will analyze stock trades for the SEC and surface likely insider trading. Pretty sure they already use tools like Palantir to do exactly this, it's just that advanced AI will supercharge this even further.

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#173

Post by forward1 »

miyuru wrote: post #12

The TV show "Person of Interest" portrayed this beautifully and it came out 12 years ago. Strange and scary how fast the world develops new technology.

It's far worse still: films like Enemy of the State (1998) actually inspired spy technology.

https://slate.com/technology/2019/06/enemy-of-the-state-wide...

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#175

Post by dorchadas »

kafrofrite wrote: post #94
bonyt wrote: post #42

I think another aspect of this is mass criminal law enforcement enabled by AI. Many of our criminal laws are written with the implicit assumption that it takes resources to investigate and prosecute a crime, and that this will limit the effective scope of the law. Prosecutorial discretion. Putting aside for the moment the (very serious) injustice that comes with the inequitable use of prosecutorial discretion, let's…

IIRC, in [1] it mentioned a few examples of AI that exhibited the same bias that is currently present in the judicial system, banks etc. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weapons_of_Math_Destruction

This is honestly what scares me the most. Our biases are built in to AI, but we pretend they're not. People will say "Well, it was the algorithm/AI, so we can't change it". Which is just awful and should scare the shit out of everyone. There was a book [0] written almost fifty years ago that predicted this. I still haven't read it, but really need to. The author claims it made him a pariah among other AI researchers at the time.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Power_and_Human_Reaso...

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#176

Post by stvltvs »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #38

Both were always going to be kind of inevitable as soon as the technology would get there. Rather than debating how to stop this (which is mostly futile and requires all of us to be nice, which we just aren't), the more urgent debate is how to adapt to this being the reality. Related to this is the notion of ubiquitous surveillance. Where basically anywhere you go, there is going to be active surveillance literally e…

I don't agree with the fatalistic attitude. At the very least it makes it too easy to strengthen surveillance. Legal restrictions can be imposed.

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#177

Post by mindslight »

Syonyk wrote: post #111
jillesvangurp wrote: post #38

Both were always going to be kind of inevitable as soon as the technology would get there. Rather than debating how to stop this (which is mostly futile and requires all of us to be nice, which we just aren't), the more urgent debate is how to adapt to this being the reality. Related to this is the notion of ubiquitous surveillance. Where basically anywhere you go, there is going to be active surveillance literally e…

> ...the more urgent debate is how to adapt to this being the reality. Start building more offline community. Building things that are outside the reach of AI because they're in places you entirely control, and start discouraging (or actively evicting...) cell phones from those spaces. Don't build digital-first ways of interacting.

> Building things that are outside the reach of AI because they're in places you entirely control

This sounds great in principle, but I'd say "outside the reach of AI" is a much higher bar than one would naively think. You don't merely need to avoid its physical nervous system (digital perception/control), but rather prevent its incentives leaking in from outside interaction. All the while there is a strong attractor to just give in to the "AI" because it's advantageous. Essentially regardless of how you set up a space, humans themselves become agents of AI.

There are strong parallels between "AI" and centralizing debt-fueled command-capitalism which we've been suffering for several decades at least. And I haven't seen any shining successes at constraining the power of the latter.

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#178

Post by whythre »

yterdy wrote: post #53
bonyt wrote: post #42

I think another aspect of this is mass criminal law enforcement enabled by AI. Many of our criminal laws are written with the implicit assumption that it takes resources to investigate and prosecute a crime, and that this will limit the effective scope of the law. Prosecutorial discretion. Putting aside for the moment the (very serious) injustice that comes with the inequitable use of prosecutorial discretion, let's…

The software that already exists along these lines already exhibit bias against marginalized groups. I have no trouble foreseeing a filter put on the end of the spigot that exempts certain people from the inconvenience of such surveillance. Might need a new law (it'll get passed).

Sounds like the devil is in the details. Often the AI seems to struggle with darker skin… are you suggesting we sift who can be monitored/prosecuted based on skin darkness? That sounds like a mess to try to enshrine in law.

Strong (and unhealthy) biases already exist when using this tech, but I am not sure that is the lever to pull that will fix the problem.

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#179

Post by forward1 »

Mass spying is yesterday's news. The thing we all need to worry about is behavioral management at scale, which influences politics, relationships, religions and much more. This is the true "hidden" evil behind social media and "AI" which few apprehend let alone can do something about.

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#180

Post by okasaki »

bonyt wrote: post #122
okasaki wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is this a better world, If the same monitoring is present on buses and private planes, homeless hostels and mega-mansions then it absolutely is better.

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread."

I mean, presumably the AI wouldn't just be monitoring people sleeping under bridges, but would also be able to effectively cut through tax evasion bullshit, insider trading, bribery, etc.
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