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While the essay's main drive is on climate, can we put that aside for a minute and talk about the orwellian surveillance apparatus talk in the central section o

While the essay's main drive is on climate, can we put that aside for a minute and talk about the orwellian surveillance apparatus talk in the central section of the essay? Or am I supposed to take the lack of comments on that as a combination of apathy and the increasing acceptance of persistent surveillance? Like > When I reflect back on this meeting, it was a surreal experience. Everyone present discussed the idea of building a workplace panopticon with complete normalcy. I get being uncomfortable working with Big Oil when you care about climate, but that kind of discussion spooks me way more. That goes way beyond climate and uncaptured externalities - that's pretty much a direct line on helping repress a people (in the service of ossifying existing power structures, ofc); potentially an attempt to utilize technology to help enforce a modern day kind of class slavery. Is that not the most obviously wrong new piece of information here? Isn't that that most notable component of this essay? Big Oil seeks to extract more Oil - that's to be expected, given their profit motivations, however unfortunate. You feel about that how you feel about that, and with respect to this essay, I don't think it's putting up much new information. But the surveillance goals of the management there? Those feel _new_ - like, if some engineer made the mistake of agreeing to assist creating those tools, that seems like it'd be _much_ more likely to goad people to anger. Me, at least, clearly. > In particular, they wanted to implement computer vision algorithms that could detect suspicious activity and then identify the worker engaging in that activity. Using ML to pick people out of a crowd for enforcement before they actually do anything seriously wrong... Literally the plot of a bunch of fictional dystopian thrillers, no? I find the concept that we'd actively seek to build such a thing quite disconcerting.

ovi256 7y ago
>before they actually do anything seriously wrong In this context, it's preventing industrial accidents before they happen. Obviously, after they do something wrong, the harm is done. This is already done currently by human supervisors BTW. Go look at any construction or industrial site. Why not free that supervisor from this burden ?
- wwwigham 7y ago
  You could call it Luddite, but I think I'm much more comfortable with human judgement being involved. Especially since that also provides an obvious place for blame to lie, if such preventative enforcement is used extrajudiciously or without reasonable cause (there is a degree of tension between supervisors and workers - that's part of why unions exist). I can also trust to some degree that the supervisor will pull someone aside and engage in a conversation, as a fellow person - robosupervisor might not be so considerate without serious consideration by it's implementors and executors (especially if such consideration doesn't help the bottom line).
  - pbalau 7y ago
    Why do people jump so easily from "lets build an efficient monitoring system" to terminators? Why do you think that first action that will be taken in such a condition will be something bad for the employee in question? Might be a simple notification for the human supervisor to check the situation out or it could even be a notification for the employee: "don't walk there, you might fall in the bloody tank".
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      Because in terms of human relationships, there's such a thing as "too efficient". Compassion, mercy, discretion, joy, friendliness - they all exist in the inefficiencies of a system, they happen in places the ruthless process hasn't reach yet. They die when turned into code - whether on computers or in papers, as bureaucracy is nothing but software running on a distributed protein runtime. People aren't worried about a system that can deliver a timely safety warning to an employee. People are worried about a system that can spot everything that looks like wrong or inefficient use of your time, everything that may perhaps lead to a problem but didn't yet, and count all that against you, and then keep counting until you cross the threshold of getting fired, and there's no one who cares or even can do anything to help you. Systems are buggy, their inputs aren't reliable, they have no understanding - and it's all too easy to everyone in the command chain to excuse themselves from responsibility by saying "but the system says so", or "but the system doesn't let me!". Next time you're wasting hours dealing with a customer support clerk of a bank or a corporation, constantly hearing "the system won't let me do that", think that at least it's just some product you're paying for, and not your very livelihood.

ovi256 7y ago

>before they actually do anything seriously wrong In this context, it's preventing industrial accidents before they happen. Obviously, after they do something wrong, the harm is done. This is already done currently by human supervisors BTW. Go look at any construction or industrial site. Why not free that supervisor from this burden ?

wwwigham 7y ago
You could call it Luddite, but I think I'm much more comfortable with human judgement being involved. Especially since that also provides an obvious place for blame to lie, if such preventative enforcement is used extrajudiciously or without reasonable cause (there is a degree of tension between supervisors and workers - that's part of why unions exist). I can also trust to some degree that the supervisor will pull someone aside and engage in a conversation, as a fellow person - robosupervisor might not be so considerate without serious consideration by it's implementors and executors (especially if such consideration doesn't help the bottom line).
- pbalau 7y ago
  Why do people jump so easily from "lets build an efficient monitoring system" to terminators? Why do you think that first action that will be taken in such a condition will be something bad for the employee in question? Might be a simple notification for the human supervisor to check the situation out or it could even be a notification for the employee: "don't walk there, you might fall in the bloody tank".
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Because in terms of human relationships, there's such a thing as "too efficient". Compassion, mercy, discretion, joy, friendliness - they all exist in the inefficiencies of a system, they happen in places the ruthless process hasn't reach yet. They die when turned into code - whether on computers or in papers, as bureaucracy is nothing but software running on a distributed protein runtime. People aren't worried about a system that can deliver a timely safety warning to an employee. People are worried about a system that can spot everything that looks like wrong or inefficient use of your time, everything that may perhaps lead to a problem but didn't yet, and count all that against you, and then keep counting until you cross the threshold of getting fired, and there's no one who cares or even can do anything to help you. Systems are buggy, their inputs aren't reliable, they have no understanding - and it's all too easy to everyone in the command chain to excuse themselves from responsibility by saying "but the system says so", or "but the system doesn't let me!". Next time you're wasting hours dealing with a customer support clerk of a bank or a corporation, constantly hearing "the system won't let me do that", think that at least it's just some product you're paying for, and not your very livelihood.