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AI and Mass Spying

schneier.com

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Re: AI and Mass Spying

#281

Post by dfxm12 »

from-nibly wrote: post #271
dfxm12 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if you bring up a dystopian nightmare, it assumes someone in power acting in bad faith. If their power is great enough, like maybe a government intelligence agency, it doesn't need things like due process, etc., to do what it wants to do. For example, Joe McCarthy & J. Edgar Hoover didn't need the evidence that could have been produced by AI-aided mass surveillance to justify getting people people who opposed…

That's what this article argues though. Even with good faith acting this would be a disaster. Imagine any time you did something against the law you got fined. The second you drive your unregistered car off your driveway (presumably to re register) you are immediately fined. There may be "due process" cause you DID break the law, but there is no contextual thought behind the massive ticket machine. Our laws are not b…

Interestingly enough, in some places, automation like that, like red light cameras, even after getting installed, were later prohibited. NJ has discussed laws around protecting NJ drivers' privacy from other states' red light cameras, too. It's important not to be complacent. You can imagine literally anything, but action is required to actually change things.

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#282

Post by miki123211 »

I personally find the censorship implications (and the business models they allow) far more worrying than the surveillance implications.

It will soon be possible to create a dating app where chatting is free, but figuring out a place to meet or exchanging contact details requires you to pay up, in a way that 99% of people won't know how to bypass, especially if repeated bypassing attempts result in a ban. Same goes for apps like Airbnb or eBay, which will be able to prevent people from using them as listing sites and conducting their transactions off-platform to avoid fees.

The social media implications are even more worrying, it will be possible to check every post, comment, message, photo or video and immediately delist it if it promotes certain views (like the lab leak theory), no matter how indirect these mentions are. Parental control software will have a field day with this, basically redefining helicopter parenting.

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#283

Post by w-m »

salawat wrote: post #272
w-m wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, everything is ultimately a political problem, but this one is completely driven by technological change. In the USSR (and GDR), it took them a staff of hundreds of thousands of people to write up their reports. Now it would take a single skilled person the better part of an afternoon to, for example, download a HN dump, and have an LLM create reports on the users. You could put in things like political affiliat…

Stop posting things like this, you're just giving them ideas, and you can't take it back once it's out there. I assure you, you may find the prodpect abhorrent, but there are people around who'd consider it a perfectly cromulent Tuesday.

I’m not sure who “they” are, but I’m pretty sure they’re already doing that, and don’t need me to get the idea. I think it’s important to talk about what LLMs mean for privacy. Profiling every HN user might be a useful tool to are people more aware of the problems. But I totally get your unease, which is also why I haven’t done that myself.

The cat is out of the bag, can’t get it back in by ignoring the fact.

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#284

Post by gosub100 »

digging wrote: post #199
somenameforme wrote: post #58

This is a political problem, not a technological one. The USSR (alongside Germany and others) managed effective at scale spying with primitive technology: paperwork for everything and every movement, informants, audio surveillance, and so on. The reason such things did not come to places like the US in the same way is not because we were incapable of such, but because there was no political interest in it. And when o…

> Make it a crime to grow a plant in the privacy of your own home and then consume that plant? Sure, why not? Make it a crime for a business to have the wrong opinion when it comes to who they want to serve or hire? Sure, why not? Wow, that's a hell of a comparison. The former case being a documented case of basic racism and political repression, assuming you're talking about cannabis. And the latter being designed f…

plenty of white people were charged with growing cannabis. I don't know where you are getting that idea from.

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#285

Post by JohnFen »

dfxm12 wrote: post #245
petsfed wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You and I are in agreement that the surveillance needs to stop, but I think we differ on how to explain the problem. My explanation follows, but note that its not directed at you. At its peak, the KGB employed ~500,000 people directly, with untold more employed as informants. The FBI currently employs ~35,000 people. What if I told you that the FBI could reach the KGB's peak level of reach, without meaningfully incre…

I think if you bring up a dystopian nightmare, it assumes someone in power acting in bad faith. If their power is great enough, like maybe a government intelligence agency, it doesn't need things like due process, etc., to do what it wants to do. For example, Joe McCarthy & J. Edgar Hoover didn't need the evidence that could have been produced by AI-aided mass surveillance to justify getting people people who opposed…

> I think if you bring up a dystopian nightmare, it assumes someone in power acting in bad faith.

I don't agree with this. I think it's entirely possible for a dystopian nightmare to happen without anyone acting in bad faith at all.

"The road to hell is paved with good intentions" is a common phrase for a reason.

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#286

Post by JohnFen »

pempem wrote: post #270
dfxm12 wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think if you bring up a dystopian nightmare, it assumes someone in power acting in bad faith. If their power is great enough, like maybe a government intelligence agency, it doesn't need things like due process, etc., to do what it wants to do. For example, Joe McCarthy & J. Edgar Hoover didn't need the evidence that could have been produced by AI-aided mass surveillance to justify getting people people who opposed…

I think it is greyer than this. Joe McCarthy and J. Edgar Hoover, distasteful as they are, I believe acted in what they would claim is good faith. The issue isn't that someone is a bad actor. It is that they believe they are a good actor and are busy stripping away others' rights in their pursuit.

Very nearly everybody -- even bad people -- consider themselves one of the "good guys".

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#287

Post by JohnFen »

gosub100 wrote: post #284
digging wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Make it a crime to grow a plant in the privacy of your own home and then consume that plant? Sure, why not? Make it a crime for a business to have the wrong opinion when it comes to who they want to serve or hire? Sure, why not? Wow, that's a hell of a comparison. The former case being a documented case of basic racism and political repression, assuming you're talking about cannabis. And the latter being designed f…

plenty of white people were charged with growing cannabis. I don't know where you are getting that idea from.

In the US, prohibition of marijuana was enacted for overtly racist reasons. Latinos were the concern.

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#288

Post by gosub100 »

JohnFen wrote: post #287
gosub100 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

plenty of white people were charged with growing cannabis. I don't know where you are getting that idea from.

In the US, prohibition of marijuana was enacted for overtly racist reasons. Latinos were the concern.

then at some point was expanded to whites.

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#289

Post by Der_Einzige »

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.

Don’t worry, stuff like this is why we have the 2A here in the USA. Sounds like it’s time for AI programmers to get their concealed carry licenses. Of course, they will be the first users of smart guns, so don’t bother trying to steal their pistol out of their holsters.

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#290

Post by JohnFen »

gosub100 wrote: post #288
JohnFen wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, prohibition of marijuana was enacted for overtly racist reasons. Latinos were the concern.

then at some point was expanded to whites.

It always applied to whites and everyone else, of course. But back then, whites were not huge users of it.
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