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AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’

techcrunch.com

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Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’

#161

Post by insanitybit »

coldtea wrote: post #154
insanitybit wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The claim was never was about the logical or practical impossibility of AI to also be used otherwise. Well, yeah, it actually was the claim. It's literally the headline and I even quoted directly from the article where they say that there is literally 100% overlap between AI and surveillance. If you want to say "that was hyperbole", congrats, you've arrived at the premise of my comment.

Ever heard of nuance and context? > If you want to say "that was hyperbole", congrats, you've arrived at the premise of my comment. The premise of the comment was more like saying a headline like "WWII is deadly for Europe" is BS because Switzerland was just fine.

I think I was pretty clear and reasonable about where I think hyperbole would have been appropriate and where I think it wasn't appropriate. Disagree if you'd like.

Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’

#162

Post by pixl97 »

mavhc wrote: post #117
notRobot wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And AI enables it to greater ex extents then ever before.

So do computers, still the humans to blame

And technology changes the scale of the buy in of that single human you have to blame. Generally a country has to follow some terrible authoritarian leader before horrific things start to happen, but when software causes the problem, even the most open democracies give up and say "Well the software told me so"

Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’

#163

Post by beedeebeedee »

michaelt wrote: post #27
jdthedisciple wrote: post #5

Does anybody know of a facial recognition AI that actually classifies faces as (non)-liars as she claims? Not sure about this take. You need data at the end of the day, to build good AI models. These days it feels like anyone's public takes are more or less just a means to promote their own cause. And I say this as a happy and long-time Signal user.

Well, the full quote from Whittaker is: > “You know, you walk past a facial recognition camera that’s instrumented with pseudo-scientific emotion recognition, and it produces data about you, right or wrong, that says ‘you are happy, you are sad, you have a bad character, you’re a liar, whatever.’ While I'm not aware of any technology that claims to classify faces as liars the rest of the statement is broadly true. An…

> While I'm not aware of any technology that claims to classify faces as liars

There are (and have been for many years of development, although I do not know about deployment) methods for identifying people as criminals.

Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’

#164

Post by fsflover »

lmpdev wrote: post #134

This thread is caught up in semantics, which is regrettable The thesis of the article should have been articulated "AI is disproportionately used as a surveillance technology owning to its computational requirements, the current state of industrial-user relations and the inability for legal systems to respond fast enough to protect individuals" Edit 1: I don't know how to make that more consise without losing the mea…

> We really need the equivalent to unions but for representating the rights of users.

You mean like https://eff.org?

Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’

#165

Post by laserbeam »

Well, true. AI as we know it today can only be made as a byproduct of surveillance and underpaid labor. And yes... It's pushed forward mostly by for profit companies which have surveillance as their core business model.

But, I really wish the article said more than that. It's an overall bland read that doesn't say much else.

Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’

#166

Post by firtoz »

mdp2021 wrote: post #25
firtoz wrote: post #10

This is a bit too much of a stretch. It's like saying that newspapers are fundamentally a gossip technology.

Are you returning that judgement as a function of the submission title (which apparently rewrites between «gossip» and attention calling an original note, «AI is a way, I think, to entrench and expand the surveillance business model»), of Coldewey's summary of the interview, of the interview itself ( https://youtu.be/amNriUZNP8w ), of the paper that is the occasion for the interview (it must be Open (For Business): B…

It's mainly about the title and the article on Techcrunch. The interview and the other links you provided are more reasonable and less click-baity.

Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’

#167

Post by bigfudge »

fsflover wrote: post #164
lmpdev wrote: post #134

This thread is caught up in semantics, which is regrettable The thesis of the article should have been articulated "AI is disproportionately used as a surveillance technology owning to its computational requirements, the current state of industrial-user relations and the inability for legal systems to respond fast enough to protect individuals" Edit 1: I don't know how to make that more consise without losing the mea…

> We really need the equivalent to unions but for representating the rights of users. You mean like https://eff.org ?

I love the eff, but I think the comment still stands — it’s not a mass market organisation. Unlike unions, it’s not clear what service eff provides to individuals, and so the market for membership is lower. That’s not a critique of eff, but perhaps a constraint on its effectiveness in contrast to unions in labour relations.

Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’

#168

Post by CrazyPyroLinux »

37638894breeze wrote: post #150
lmpdev wrote: post #134

This thread is caught up in semantics, which is regrettable The thesis of the article should have been articulated "AI is disproportionately used as a surveillance technology owning to its computational requirements, the current state of industrial-user relations and the inability for legal systems to respond fast enough to protect individuals" Edit 1: I don't know how to make that more consise without losing the mea…

The semantically significant bit is "technology" and that is what is tripping up the "mah local model" group. Technology develops as the result of focused application of capital and shaping the evolution of that technology to serve the interest of that capital. The driving force behind AI -- when ranked according to impact and significance -- is being funded by surveillance capitalists. In that sense one can say "AI…

> AI and Capitalism are a toxic mix

The only worse combinations would be AI+Communism, or (arguably what we have) AI+Facism

Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’

#169

Post by bigfudge »

insanitybit wrote: post #152
coldtea wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can run models locally on my laptop, so no, it isn't. Which is irrelevant if tens of thousands of other AIs, from entities with 4-5 orders of magnitude more times the resources and power over the economy/society/country than you use them for surveillance and to optimize to your detriment. The claim was never was about the logical or practical impossibility of AI to also be used otherwise. And facial recognition i…

> The claim was never was about the logical or practical impossibility of AI to also be used otherwise. Well, yeah, it actually was the claim. It's literally the headline and I even quoted directly from the article where they say that there is literally 100% overlap between AI and surveillance. If you want to say "that was hyperbole", congrats, you've arrived at the premise of my comment.

To within an order of magnitude that’s probably true. Local llm use is a rounding error at present and likely to remain so outside of specialised application s like scanning. For child porn on your mobile, which you still have no control over.

Re: AI is fundamentally ‘a surveillance technology’

#170

Post by tremon »

michaelt wrote: post #27
jdthedisciple wrote: post #5

Does anybody know of a facial recognition AI that actually classifies faces as (non)-liars as she claims? Not sure about this take. You need data at the end of the day, to build good AI models. These days it feels like anyone's public takes are more or less just a means to promote their own cause. And I say this as a happy and long-time Signal user.

Well, the full quote from Whittaker is: > “You know, you walk past a facial recognition camera that’s instrumented with pseudo-scientific emotion recognition, and it produces data about you, right or wrong, that says ‘you are happy, you are sad, you have a bad character, you’re a liar, whatever.’ While I'm not aware of any technology that claims to classify faces as liars the rest of the statement is broadly true. An…

While I'm not aware of any technology that claims to classify faces as liars

Not a technology, but the "science" has a name: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology?useskin=timeless#Ap...

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