3 ms·
is the issue surveillance, or AI?
by amazingamazing 2y ago
is the issue surveillance, or AI?
- apothegm 2y agoWhy not both?
- amazingamazing 2y agowhy would it be bad for federal workers to be surveilled? is there an expectation of privacy while you're working?
- contagiousflow 2y agoYou want an unelected, foreign entity to have total visibility into your government?
- amazingamazing 2y agowhich foreign entity are you referring to? and was this unelected entity appointed by an elected one? Federal judges in the USA are unelected and some have a foreign background. Are you against them too?
- sham1 2y agoDOGE, or alternatively Elon Musk. And even if one can argue whether those count as foreign entities as in other countries, they're certainly foreign to the US government, since this is quite novel BS.
- amazingamazing 2y agoWasn't Musk appointed by Trump though?
- JKCalhoun 2y agoIs Musk a Chief of Staff? A press secretary? Why no Senate approval?
- amazingamazing 2y agoHe's a SGE - which is time limited, and needs no approval.
- Volundr 2y agoAnd has strict limits as to their authority which don't appear to be being followed. Is he the head of DOGE or isn't he? Depends on if it's a reporter or a judge asking.
- _DeadFred_ 2y agoFunny because everyone was stating his role in a way that doesn't fit that definition in public, but then changed to fit the definition when required in court.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- sham1 2y agoSure (although Trump's legitimacy to be in the position to do this kind of stuff is also suspect, but that's just me looking from across the Atlantic) but that doesn't make things necessarily legitimate. Musk being in a position to do this due to Trump appointment doesn't imply that this ought to be a case, or that this is proper. Thus critique.
- oyashirochama 2y agoWhy is Trump suspect? This is the same argument made last time by Trumps side. He's legitimate, since there are no rules not allowing him (he's a natural citizen and well old enough), thus meeting all requirements. Is he a proper choice? No, but neither side offered any proper choice in a meaningful time and thus failed our nation.
- contagiousflow 2y agoYou don't have to assume I'm American. But yeah, the officials that interpret law at the highest level should absolutely be democratically elected. Why would that even be some sort of gotcha?
- amazingamazing 2y agoit's not a gotcha - it's just that what you're saying is already how it is for most of the judicial branch, so it's not really a big deal.
- CoastalCoder 2y agoI have no problem with surveillance of federal workers on their job sites, per se. I say this as a federal worker. (Edited for clarity.) As others have mentioned, there are two legitimate concerns here: (1) Civil servants are heavily trained on the laws restricting use and access to certain information. There's reasonable doubt that DOGE and/or Trump will uphold those laws with these systems additional surveillance systems in place. (2) This administration has proven itself incompetent and criminal regarding HR activities. Civil servants can reasonably wonder if this will further those dysfunctions.
- amazingamazing 2y ago> I have no problem with surveillance per se. OK. For the rest, we have elections and in the interim contact your congresspeople. Believe it or not, some percent of the country supports these actions, so the only solution is to remove them through the democratic process and put pressure on elected officials to hold them accountable.
- acdha 2y agoThere is no expectation of privacy but there is a need for rules and oversight. Some communications are sensitive - anything involving lawyers, unions, health providers, etc. has legal considerations - and there is both a concern about whether government data is being shared improperly with third-party companies. For example, if they’re using Grok to analyze text, there’s potentially a huge conflict of interest if any of the communications being analyzed involves regulation of Musk’s companies or the various lawsuits he’s part of. Similarly, since they’re creating a conflict between perceived political disloyalty and professional ethics you have questions like whether an EPA official whose messages are flagged will have a human review the alleged offenses or be given a chance to defend their actions, or simply be “randomly” included in some RIF. We haven’t had to think about that since the McCarthy / lavender scare era, which significantly predated modern surveillance technology. Since DOGE is widely reported to be using Signal and private email servers, there is reason to question whether those ethical standards will be followed.
- amazingamazing 2y agoeverything you're saying is correct, and folks should contact their representatives, particularly if those are republicans, to share their concerns.
- palmotea 2y ago>> why would it be bad for federal workers to be surveilled? is there an expectation of privacy while you're working? > they’re creating a conflict between perceived political disloyalty and professional ethics I think that gets to the heart of the matter: what is the purpose of the surveillance? In this case, it appears to be to root out people who have wrongthink about the leaders, e.g. > Musk’s team is rolling out AI to monitor workers, including looking for language in communications considered hostile to Trump or Musk Hostility to Trump or Musk is what you want, if they're pushing to do something illegal or unethical.
- exe34 2y ago> shared improperly with third-party companies. For example, if they’re using Grok to analyze text, there’s potentially a huge conflict of interest if any of the communications being analyzed involves regulation of Musk’s companies or the various lawsuits he’s part of. I don't think this is a problem anymore - hasn't he already cancelled anybody who was investigating him? I assume anybody who wants to keep their job knows to look the other way at this point.
- renewedrebecca 2y agoDo you like to be surveilled at work? Would it make you want to do a better job or just hate your job more?
- ToucanLoucan 2y agoYes. Surveillance because his weird organization doesn’t fit anywhere in actual org charts and its unclear who plays oversight for it or handles its data security, and because AI is notoriously prone to hallucinations and shouldn’t be used deterministically.
- llm_nerd 2y agoIt's pretty sparse with details and could just be speculation, but it sounds like "sentiment analysis at scale". Traditional monitoring would be keywords or manual oversight, the former being ineffective and the latter being labour intensive. Having AI monitoring every communication for wrong-think, where wrong-think is simply arguing against a direction or initiative, is...novel. There is something rather interesting in Trumpism where everyone has to fall in line in ways never, ever seen before. The dictator dictates and everyone else starts parroting. There is incredible danger if no one in government is allowed to express disagreement.
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- justonceokay 2y agoThe issue is a lack of accountability. The technology is irrelevant.
- amazingamazing 2y agoYup - people should contact their representatives.
- palmotea 2y ago> is the issue surveillance, or AI? Both. I'm sure one of the biggest eventual use cases of AI will be surveillance at scale. If that's the case, how enthusiastic are you be about AI as a technology?
- tiahura 2y agoEventual? MS has been offering employee ai monitoring and troublemaker finding for 2 years.