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Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

nytimes.com

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Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#111

Post by b_b »

Razengan wrote: post #101
telltruth wrote: post #67

I fully expect this to keep getting advanced further. There has been no protest whatsoever within China and even many people of Chinese origin living in US with US citizenship seem to think this is necessary and good for the people. I have been told that "outsiders" won't "understand" this. The bottom line is that if people are not rebelling against current measures of social credit, government only has incentive to…

> I fully expect this to keep getting advanced further. If they aren’t going to scale it back then I hope they go all the way with it. I hope they try to automate it and feed everything about everyone to a centralized AI. I hope they give it more and more control including the ability to direct military drones. I hope it then turns on them. Because the “smart stupid” people that implement well-intentioned malice like…

Seems a bit harsh to wish the suffering that this will cause on literally billions of people to prove a point, when we can intervene now instead.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#112

Post by defen »

ggm wrote: post #32
walrus01 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vast majority of cameras in the US aren't feeding centralized recording/storage/analysis/monitoring centers. The $90 1080p cameras in your local 7-11 are probably feeding a box with a few 3TB HDDs in it on a shelf in the back room. Quite the opposite in China.

I have attended meetings discussing IoT and at one, the observation was made many of the cameras are deployed by private individuals, not the state. Private individuals want to surveil their own surroundings. I can't explain why, I don't live in China. But I do notice many buildings in the cities I visit have thick strong window bars even up above the 5th floor. Maybe there is a strong concern about local petty crime…

> But I do notice many buildings in the cities I visit have thick strong window bars even up above the 5th floor.

Thieves will rappel down from the roof, so no floor is really safe without the bars.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#113

Post by ymse »

jknz wrote: post #25
Tenoke wrote: post #5

The technology isn't quite there, and Chinese law enforcement clearly exaggerates in order to maximize the current impact. However, we are very close to the point where everything could be tracked, and recorded in a usable way - including the exact location of most citizens at all times, discrepancies in utility bills, shopping, internet activity (except possibly for those few with impeccable OpSec, and even that for…

> Dissidents and revolutionaries would hardly be able to do much. Hence the scary question: Once the technology is available (now) and complete surveillance is implemented (soon), is there a going back?

A friend of mine speculated that total surveillance (and thus control) of society will eventually make the world consistent in logical terms.

Which necessarily makes it incomplete following Gödel's incompleteness theorems. Here completeness refers to diversity: to maximize completeness is to encourage genetic (and memetic) variation. If society is consistent, such a proposition becomes absurd.

It's an interesting thought experiment, and I don't think the consistent state is reversible. Luckily it requires that all of the world (intelligentsia) agree on the same set of rules, so there's still time.

Taking this argument to the extreme: perhaps the reason we haven't met civilisations from other worlds is simply that they all made the same logical error once the tech was available.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#114

Post by justicezyx »

nine_k wrote: post #38
ggm wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have attended meetings discussing IoT and at one, the observation was made many of the cameras are deployed by private individuals, not the state. Private individuals want to surveil their own surroundings. I can't explain why, I don't live in China. But I do notice many buildings in the cities I visit have thick strong window bars even up above the 5th floor. Maybe there is a strong concern about local petty crime…

I suppose that strong bar on 5th floor may be a means to keep people inside , not prevent invasion from outside. That is, it might be a safety measure preventing falling from a window. E.g. windows in my apartment used to have state-mandated bars because my daughter was small, and had to be prevented from falling from a window.

I am amused that such statement is even possible, as if, someone just lost their common sense and start to reason China in a way that is exactly opposite of what they believed to be common sense.

To be fair, I spent first 24 years of my life in China. Your idea were never appeared in any form of discussion when I was there. I did not even fancied about such explanation.

All in all, I assume you want to have a reasonable discussion.

To your point, no, those bars are not for preventing staff falling.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#115

Post by 0110011 »

walrus01 wrote: post #89
symisc_devel wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they really don't care about any open source license. In fact, they are notorious for GPL violation. What they were looking for is the Real-time face detector implemented directly in the C code which is available only for the commercial version of the library ( https://pixlab.io/downloads ).

If I were an unethical Chinese company that really wanted your library, I'd create a US LLC, get some web designers to make a decent looking page that looks real enough, license the C code for some small bespoke project, and then disappear once I had the code/library.

Or just get an agent hired at your company. At lot of companies don't even limit source access to devs. If they got someone in QA or sales with network access they might have enough to grab your code.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#116

Post by hawkice »

coldtea wrote: post #43
tmalsburg2 wrote: post #2

The article says there are four times as many cameras in China than in the US. This means approximately the same number of cameras per citizen. Where is the NYT article about the US' dystopian dreams?

> Where is the NYT article about the US' dystopian dreams? Well, you don't shit where you live, or where those that pay you live.

I guess I don't understand. Are you saying The New York Times would refuse to publish news or editorials criticizing an element of American culture or governance? Perhaps I am confused, but it seems like that's almost all they ever report.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#117

Post by hawkice »

hnzix wrote: post #50

Shan gao, huangdi yuan The mountains are no longer high, nor the emperor far away. How long until your sesame credit is docked for walking into the wrong bookshop?

山高，皇帝远。

For those less comfortable with atonal pinyin.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#118

Post by mistermann »

Razengan wrote: post #101
telltruth wrote: post #67

I fully expect this to keep getting advanced further. There has been no protest whatsoever within China and even many people of Chinese origin living in US with US citizenship seem to think this is necessary and good for the people. I have been told that "outsiders" won't "understand" this. The bottom line is that if people are not rebelling against current measures of social credit, government only has incentive to…

> I fully expect this to keep getting advanced further. If they aren’t going to scale it back then I hope they go all the way with it. I hope they try to automate it and feed everything about everyone to a centralized AI. I hope they give it more and more control including the ability to direct military drones. I hope it then turns on them. Because the “smart stupid” people that implement well-intentioned malice like…

Usually. Like democracy and freedom is superior, usually.

Re: Inside China’s Dystopian Dreams: A.I., Shame and Lots of Cameras

#120

Post by rsync »

ymse wrote: post #113
jknz wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Dissidents and revolutionaries would hardly be able to do much. Hence the scary question: Once the technology is available (now) and complete surveillance is implemented (soon), is there a going back?

A friend of mine speculated that total surveillance (and thus control) of society will eventually make the world consistent in logical terms. Which necessarily makes it incomplete following Gödel's incompleteness theorems. Here completeness refers to diversity: to maximize completeness is to encourage genetic (and memetic) variation. If society is consistent, such a proposition becomes absurd. It's an interesting tho…

"Taking this argument to the extreme: perhaps the reason we haven't met civilisations from other worlds is simply that they all made the same logical error once the tech was available."

In the book _A Deepness in the Sky_, it is remarked that civilizations/governments that attempt to implement "ubiquitous law enforcement" are making a terrible mistake that always ends very poorly. It is, in the book, a marker of a society that is about to die.

I recommend the book.

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