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AI and Mass Spying

schneier.com

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Re: AI and Mass Spying

#311

Post by StanislavPetrov »

erikerikson wrote: post #292
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…

Yes, with properly developed AI, rather than penalizing speeding, which most of us do and is also a proxy for harmful outcomes and inefficiencies, we can penalize reckless behaviors such as coming too close to vehicles, aggressive weaving, and other factors that are tightly correlated with the negative outcomes we care to reduce (i.e. loss of life, property damage). So too, the systems could warn people about their b…

>desirable outcomes (i.e. harm reduction, efficiency, effectiveness)

Unfortunately different people have different definitions of "harm" and "effectiveness". What one person consider a, "positive increase in behavior" another might consider a grievous violation of their freedom and personal autonomy. For example there is an ongoing debate about compelled speech. Some people view it as positive and desirable to use the force of law to compel people refer to others as they wish to be referred, while others strongly support their freedom to speak freely, even if others are offended. Who gets to program the AI with their definition of positivity in this case?

A free society demands a somewhat narrowly tailored set of laws that govern behavior (especially interpersonal behavior). An ever-present AI that monitors us all the time and tries to steer (or worse, compel with the force of law) all of our daily behaviors is the opposite of freedom, it is the worst kind of totalitarianism.

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#312

Post by tech_ken »

thesuperbigfrog wrote: post #280
tech_ken wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean by this definition I’d say it happened when they introduced Siri or Hey Google. The creation of these tools and their massive/universal adoption a la web-crawlers is still a large gap though. Getting to point where you consider them as a dark “guardian angel” or “ancestral spirit” goes even a step farther I think

>> The creation of these tools and their massive/universal adoption a la web-crawlers is still a large gap though. It only takes a decade or so. Consider people who are young children now in "first world nations". They will have always had LLM-based tools available and voice assistants you can ask natural language questions. It will likely follow the same adoption curves as smartphones, only faster because of existin…

I do see what you mean, and don't totally disagree, but to extend your "smartphone" metaphor I see your hypothetical as akin to someone looking at a like an old school Motorola Razr and saying "in the future these will be ubiquitous". Not necessarily wrong, but not exactly right either. The implementation of personalized assistants could take lots of different flavors, and the ultimate usage pattern which is settled (to me) seems likely to be outside any of our current models.

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#313

Post by aaroninsf »

"This is a political problem..."

No. The US has always had political problems wrt surveillance; and many places have had much worse ones.

Now, all of us can anticipate a very different, all but inevitable, and very much worse political problem.

AI is a force multiplier and an accelerant.

As such it is a problem, an obvious one, and a very very big one. This is just one of many ways in which force multiplication and acceleration, so pursued, and so lauded, in so many domains, may work their magic on preexisting social and political evils. And give us brand new ones, per Larkin.

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#314

Post by erikerikson »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #311
erikerikson wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, with properly developed AI, rather than penalizing speeding, which most of us do and is also a proxy for harmful outcomes and inefficiencies, we can penalize reckless behaviors such as coming too close to vehicles, aggressive weaving, and other factors that are tightly correlated with the negative outcomes we care to reduce (i.e. loss of life, property damage). So too, the systems could warn people about their b…

>desirable outcomes (i.e. harm reduction, efficiency, effectiveness) Unfortunately different people have different definitions of "harm" and "effectiveness". What one person consider a, "positive increase in behavior" another might consider a grievous violation of their freedom and personal autonomy. For example there is an ongoing debate about compelled speech. Some people view it as positive and desirable to use th…

We agree that defining such terms involves trade-offs yet the perfect should not be the enemy of the better.

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#315

Post by giantg2 »

janalsncm wrote: post #268
giantg2 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not just a political problem intelligence gathering can happen at scale, including of civilians, by adversarial countries or international corporations. "Going the nuclear route and making the collection of data on individuals, aggregated or otherwise, illegal would hardly be some major leap of reach of jurisprudence." It would in fact be a huge leap. Sure, you could make illegal pretty easily, but current p…

> current paradigms allow individuals to enter into contracts And such contracts can be illegal or unenforceable. Just as the parent was suggesting it could be illegal to collect data, it is currently illegal to sell certain drugs. You can’t enter into a contract to sell cannabis across state lines in the United States for example.

It's not going to be illegal or unenforceable based on existing jurisprudence though. You'd need legislative action from congress.

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#316

Post by thesz »

AIs, LLMs in patricular, go in one direction, just like humans usually do.

What other humans do to cicumvent that? Yes, they found a way to alternate direction, in case of London cockney, by using rhymes [1].

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/education/2014/jun/09/guide-to-c...

If you need to fool your AI of choice, rhyme the concepts!

For a demo, ask your AI of choice about "Does basin of gravy likes satin and silk?" (decode yourself)

The article above is from 2014 and is hardly is used when I asked questions using Cockney parlance.

You are welcome. ;)

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#317

Post by zooq_ai »

doktrin wrote: post #242
zooq_ai wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why nobody worries? Because this is an elite person problem. At the end of the day, all those surveillance still has to be consumed by a person and only around 10,000 people in this world (celebs, hot women, politicians and wealthy) will be surveilled. For most of HN crowd (upper middle-class, suburban family) who have zero problems in their life must create imaginary problems of privacy / surveillance like this. But…

> But reality is, even if they put all their private data on a website, heresallmyprivatedata.com, nobody cares. It'll have 0 external views. This is obviously false. Personal data is a multi billion dollar industry operating across all shades of legality.

Ads is not surveillance

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#318

Post by consumer451 »

HackerThemAll wrote: post #7

Soon in the name of "security" you'll have your face scanned on average every few minutes and it's going to be mandatory in many aspects of our lives. That's the pathetic world IT has helped to build.

It’s going to get much worse, and quickly.

Neural interfaces are the last frontier of privacy, and it seems that TSA will just take a quick scan before boarding, soon enough.

It would be wise of us to create a Neural Bill of Rights, so we don’t miss the boat like we did with the Internet tracking.

https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2023/03/13/229-...

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#319

Post by bryan_w »

petsfed wrote: post #236
zooq_ai wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why nobody worries? Because this is an elite person problem. At the end of the day, all those surveillance still has to be consumed by a person and only around 10,000 people in this world (celebs, hot women, politicians and wealthy) will be surveilled. For most of HN crowd (upper middle-class, suburban family) who have zero problems in their life must create imaginary problems of privacy / surveillance like this. But…

Its not an elite person problem. Certainly, some of the more exotic and flashy things you can do with surveillance are an elite person problem. But the two main limits to police power are that it takes time and resources to establish that a crime occurred, and it takes time and resources to determine who committed a crime. A distant third is the officer/DA's personal discretion as to whether or not to purse enforceme…

>Did a bug fly in your mouth yesterday, and you spit it out on the sidewalk in view of a camera? Better be extra obsequious when Officer No-Neck with "You're fucked" written on his service weapon pulls up to the gas station you're pumping at. If you don't show whatever deference he deems adequate, he's got a list of petty crimes he can issue a citation for, entirely at his discretion.

>> HN crowd (upper middle-class, suburban family) who have zero problems in their life must create imaginary problems of privacy / surveillance like this

I'm glad you both could agree with each other.

Re: AI and Mass Spying

#320

Post by StanislavPetrov »

erikerikson wrote: post #314
StanislavPetrov wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>desirable outcomes (i.e. harm reduction, efficiency, effectiveness) Unfortunately different people have different definitions of "harm" and "effectiveness". What one person consider a, "positive increase in behavior" another might consider a grievous violation of their freedom and personal autonomy. For example there is an ongoing debate about compelled speech. Some people view it as positive and desirable to use th…

We agree that defining such terms involves trade-offs yet the perfect should not be the enemy of the better.

Certainly the perfect should not be the enemy of the good. But the bad should be the enemy of the good. The very core of freedom is the ability to have your own thoughts, your own value system and your own autonomy. In a free society, laws exists so that individuals are able to enjoy their own thoughts, values and autonomy while being constrained from harming others. Obviously, there is a balance to strike (which is not always easy to determine) between law and freedom. We see this on display every day in our society. You need look no further than the crisis in San Franisco (and many other US cities) between the right of an mentally ill individual to sleep and defecate on the sidewalk and the right of society to pass laws to prevent this activity.

The conversation changes when you are talking about prescribing a set of behaviors that are universally considered, "good" and are pushed (and possibly demanded) by an ever-present AI that is constantly looking over your shoulder and judging your behavior (and possibly thoughts) by this preset behavioral standard that may or may not match your own preferences. This is totalitarianism beyond anything Orwell ever imagined. What you consider good and desirable, someone else considers bad and despicable. That is the essence of freedom. In a free society, the law exists (or should exist) only to stop you two from hitting each other over the head or engaging in other acts of overt violence and aggression, not to attempt to brainwash and coerce one of you into falling into line.

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