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There are very few, if any, clear cut, night-and-day subjects in ethics. Not wanting to engage with ethics because slippery slopes exist is simply turning from

There are very few, if any, clear cut, night-and-day subjects in ethics. Not wanting to engage with ethics because slippery slopes exist is simply turning from incredibly important work because it’s difficult and not work you want to do. These technologies can incarcerate people. It’s really important to dive onto the slippery slope and find out where it’s stable.

djoldman 6y ago
Agreed. Therefore, I ask: how does one tell the difference between software that can and cannot surveil?
- smitty1e 6y ago
  It's all so much information. "Surveil" is ambiguous.
  - byecomputer 6y ago
    Wikipedia: "Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing." Which I think most would agree is the standard definition of surveillance, and I also think the concept of being surveilled comes naturally to most, which is why parties that surveil people make clear efforts to obfuscate the fact that they do so.
    - smitty1e 6y ago
      Great, so, as long as we "surveil" people post-facto, by using AI against logs, it's cool. The sticky wicket seems to be doing it in real time.
- benlivengood 6y ago
  The simplest criteria is whether the software records data that models the real world. If so, it can be used for surveillance by entering data about real people. So most useful record-keeping software can be used for surveillance. Most software capable of inferring data about the real world from sensors can also be used for surveillance. Most likely a better ethical framework for talking about surveillance is "how can surveillance (its components, owners, operators, and consumers) be identified in practice and what are its effects?" Surveillance is a subset of knowledge, and most knowledge is both useful and amoral. The use of knowledge for unethical things is the problem, not the knowledge itself. Names, for example, are probably the oldest technology for surveillance; used since pre-history to refer to specific real people and data about them such as the names of locations they reside in or visit. No one blames names for the effects of surveillance.
deleted 6y ago
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djoldman 6y ago

Agreed. Therefore, I ask: how does one tell the difference between software that can and cannot surveil?

smitty1e 6y ago
It's all so much information. "Surveil" is ambiguous.
- byecomputer 6y ago
  Wikipedia: "Surveillance is the monitoring of behavior, activities, or information for the purpose of information gathering, influencing, managing or directing." Which I think most would agree is the standard definition of surveillance, and I also think the concept of being surveilled comes naturally to most, which is why parties that surveil people make clear efforts to obfuscate the fact that they do so.
  - smitty1e 6y ago
    Great, so, as long as we "surveil" people post-facto, by using AI against logs, it's cool. The sticky wicket seems to be doing it in real time.
benlivengood 6y ago
The simplest criteria is whether the software records data that models the real world. If so, it can be used for surveillance by entering data about real people. So most useful record-keeping software can be used for surveillance. Most software capable of inferring data about the real world from sensors can also be used for surveillance. Most likely a better ethical framework for talking about surveillance is "how can surveillance (its components, owners, operators, and consumers) be identified in practice and what are its effects?" Surveillance is a subset of knowledge, and most knowledge is both useful and amoral. The use of knowledge for unethical things is the problem, not the knowledge itself. Names, for example, are probably the oldest technology for surveillance; used since pre-history to refer to specific real people and data about them such as the names of locations they reside in or visit. No one blames names for the effects of surveillance.

deleted 6y ago

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