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Microsoft president: Orwell’s 1984 could happen in 2024

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Microsoft president: Orwell’s 1984 could happen in 2024

#24
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Opinions and attitudes can change a lot in ten years.

Just so people have a ready response for Schmidt's thoughtless statement: 1) I don't want potentially naked fotos or conversations of my family online. Do you? 2) Regulations and customs change over time. Something ok 10 years ago can be damning tomorrow. 3) How do you maintain privacy of medical and lawyer conversations when anything can be released without permission? Ironically, I had the same conversation with a…

The ideal case is not sending naked fotos online, if you'd be embarrassed by that kind of thing. and I would never trust any kind of technology to keep medical or legal secrets. I generally assume that anything I submit to a remote server may be compromised and released at some point.

You always have to place absolute trust in someone, even Google. It doesn't matter what Eric Schmidt says. You're trusting dozens of companies with your privacy and your secrets every day, whether you realize it or not

Re: Microsoft president: Orwell’s 1984 could happen in 2024

#25
post #3

>"The programme explores China’s increasing use of AI to monitor its citizens. >"Critics fear the state's dominance in the area could threaten democracy" As he implies, government will have to regulate the allowed scope of AI and will also have to do without it itself, lest it get enamored with it and do what we fear China will be doing soon to its own citizens. We know companies will not refrain themselves out of th…

For me having been on the inside so to speak in the AI industry, what I fear is systems that so radically shift the balance of user power before the users (or victims) are even aware of the new technology. We need an industry ethics standard of a very terse nature and a whistleblowing nonprofit. Congress's legislative process is too comprimised by k-street for that angle to be very effective.

Re: Microsoft president: Orwell’s 1984 could happen in 2024

#26
I don't want to cast the central concern as trivial, because it's real, BUT, c'mon, "beating China in AI is imperative?" Grow up. To "beat" anybody (and for that matter to have any sort of claim to deserving to "win" anything), you would want to "beat China at Not-Being-A-Repressive-Dystopia" wouldn't you? Perhaps including "beating China at Not-Using-AI-To-Be-A-Repressive-Dystopia?"

Re: Microsoft president: Orwell’s 1984 could happen in 2024

#28
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just so people have a ready response for Schmidt's thoughtless statement: 1) I don't want potentially naked fotos or conversations of my family online. Do you? 2) Regulations and customs change over time. Something ok 10 years ago can be damning tomorrow. 3) How do you maintain privacy of medical and lawyer conversations when anything can be released without permission? Ironically, I had the same conversation with a…

The ideal case is not sending naked fotos online, if you'd be embarrassed by that kind of thing. and I would never trust any kind of technology to keep medical or legal secrets. I generally assume that anything I submit to a remote server may be compromised and released at some point. You always have to place absolute trust in someone, even Google. It doesn't matter what Eric Schmidt says. You're trusting dozens of c…

> I would never trust any kind of technology to keep medical or legal secrets

Paper too, is in a sense, technology.

Re: Microsoft president: Orwell’s 1984 could happen in 2024

#29
> Dr Schmidt became an adviser to the Pentagon in 2016, while retaining a position as executive chairman of Alphabet, Google’s parent company.

> In the following years, Google started a contract with the Pentagon, allowing it to use some of its image recognition technologies as part of a military project.

Coincidence? I think not.

Brad Smith should focus on why the US is losing the R&D war. The reason is simple. It is increasingly difficult to do business in the United States. Hiring is more expensive and risky than it is in china. The dollar is being devalued. Brad Smith is an advocate for increased regulation, which is great for a company that can afford it(his company). It's called "Regulatory Capture".

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