Thank you for such a clear depiction of the dangers, not so much of technology, but of the minds that program it. At this moment some of those minds are too limited, ideological,childish, or disturbed to be unleashed with no accountability, and no off ramps.
Excellent point. Technology is inherently amoral. It is how it is used that determines its morality. AI is a tool of the mind just as a hammer is a tool of a hand. Both can be used for both good and bad.
Talking about ‘commercial open source’ based surveillance: In the EU you have to give consent to cookies. That mechanism often enables you to inspect which parties want to survey you. By now, there are several hundreds (I counted) if not thousands of such data gatherers and it is a billions of dollars industry. Who buys that stuff? How many are effectively government fronts?
This is a real problem for privacy, and thus freedom, if the state can use all that data. Because at the moment a-democratic players get their hands on that data, critics become very vulnerable.
Might it be possible that we'd be better off if we just put AI in charge altogether - to replace the likes of Swigseth? At least we can be confident that AI won't be too drunk to make rational decisions.
Aug 17, 2015 — AT&T provided the NSA with access to billions of communications records — including emails and phone call data — as they...
This Frontljne Program is still in the web. The knee-jerk policies post 911 and the internet enabled our government to spy on us via the internet plus colkect data about us from private cor-pirate data aggregators with no warrants necessary. This is ancient news the technologjes can now see and hear voices in your house. Your local swat team likely has the tools to spy on anyone. Ice certainly does.
Those weren't knee-jerk policies - they were intentionally designed as part of the whitewash of what Dubya and Cheney knew and when they knew it, with the added benefit of providing an exponentially more powerful surveillance state.
I used “knee-jerk" as a more polite expression of the less polite words like black prisons, government funded private prisons, water boarding, john yoo, etc.
"The dystopias we ought fear will be less like 1984 with its all seeing Big Brother, and more like Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, in which a bug caught in a teleprinter results in the wrong person being targeted and tormented."
Have been haunted by "Brazil" every since I first watched it.
I really appreciate your framing of bureaucratic AI integration as the core risk. I’ve been thinking about a related question from the activist side: what happens when movements themselves rely on corporate AI infrastructure? I wrote something exploring that tension between efficiency and autonomy. Would love your thoughts if you’re interested: https://hayleymoro.substack.com/p/organizing-with-the-enemys-infrastructure
Thank you for such a clear depiction of the dangers, not so much of technology, but of the minds that program it. At this moment some of those minds are too limited, ideological,childish, or disturbed to be unleashed with no accountability, and no off ramps.
Excellent point. Technology is inherently amoral. It is how it is used that determines its morality. AI is a tool of the mind just as a hammer is a tool of a hand. Both can be used for both good and bad.
The terror is that the leaders of our world - Putin, Xi, Trump, Netanyahu - don’t care about the errors.
Slop is a shrug to them, and a dead wedding party to us.
Talking about ‘commercial open source’ based surveillance: In the EU you have to give consent to cookies. That mechanism often enables you to inspect which parties want to survey you. By now, there are several hundreds (I counted) if not thousands of such data gatherers and it is a billions of dollars industry. Who buys that stuff? How many are effectively government fronts?
This is a real problem for privacy, and thus freedom, if the state can use all that data. Because at the moment a-democratic players get their hands on that data, critics become very vulnerable.
"Who buys that stuff?" Identity thieves.
Might it be possible that we'd be better off if we just put AI in charge altogether - to replace the likes of Swigseth? At least we can be confident that AI won't be too drunk to make rational decisions.
PBS
https://www.pbs.org
How AT&T Helped the NSA Spy on Millions
Aug 17, 2015 — AT&T provided the NSA with access to billions of communications records — including emails and phone call data — as they...
This Frontljne Program is still in the web. The knee-jerk policies post 911 and the internet enabled our government to spy on us via the internet plus colkect data about us from private cor-pirate data aggregators with no warrants necessary. This is ancient news the technologjes can now see and hear voices in your house. Your local swat team likely has the tools to spy on anyone. Ice certainly does.
Those weren't knee-jerk policies - they were intentionally designed as part of the whitewash of what Dubya and Cheney knew and when they knew it, with the added benefit of providing an exponentially more powerful surveillance state.
I used “knee-jerk" as a more polite expression of the less polite words like black prisons, government funded private prisons, water boarding, john yoo, etc.
Thank you for the like and comment!
"The dystopias we ought fear will be less like 1984 with its all seeing Big Brother, and more like Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, in which a bug caught in a teleprinter results in the wrong person being targeted and tormented."
Have been haunted by "Brazil" every since I first watched it.
"What have you done with his body?!"
???
"Ioan. Bapt. Piranesi fecit" is a Latin inscription commonly found on 18th-century etchings, translating to "Giovanni Battista Piranesi made [this]"
I really appreciate your framing of bureaucratic AI integration as the core risk. I’ve been thinking about a related question from the activist side: what happens when movements themselves rely on corporate AI infrastructure? I wrote something exploring that tension between efficiency and autonomy. Would love your thoughts if you’re interested: https://hayleymoro.substack.com/p/organizing-with-the-enemys-infrastructure
this sends me into reveries about how blind heidegger was of a great deal of his thinking.