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The biggest danger of AI isn't that it will revolt but that it'll allow dictators and other totalitarians complete control over the population. And I mean tota

The biggest danger of AI isn't that it will revolt but that it'll allow dictators and other totalitarians complete control over the population. And I mean total. A sufficiently advanced algorithm will be able to find everything a person has ever posted online (by cross referencing, writing style, etc.) and determine their views and opinions with high accuracy. It'll be able to extrapolate the evolution of a person's opinions. The government will be able to target dissidents even before they realize they are dissidents, let alone before they have time to organize.

tabarnacle 1y ago
Sure.. for folks who don’t worry about anonymity when sharing online. For those who prioritize anonymity, I’m doubtful.
- throwanem 1y ago
  So am I. They would be among the first and most quietly vanished in this scenario, being trivially identifiable from a God's-eye view.
- fooker 1y ago
  You can identify with a decent amount of confidence whether two paragraphs of text were written by the same person.
barbazoo 1y ago
That’s what the database is for then. https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-database-palantir-dystopian-alarm-2079688 https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-database-palantir-dyst...
- throwanem 1y ago
  Sure. https://www.criterion.com/films/211-brazil https://www.criterion.com/films/211-brazil
exiguus 1y ago
I'm not entirely convinced that nations will play as significant a role in the coming decades as they have historically. Currently, we observe a trend where affluent individuals are increasingly consolidating power, a phenomenon that is becoming more apparent in the public sphere. Notably, these individuals are also at the forefront of owning and controlling advancements in artificial intelligence. Coincidentally, this trend is often referred to as 'tech fascism,' bringing us back to the dictator schema.
- throwanem 1y ago
  States haven't always been a major feature of power. But we've never seen the interaction of personal power with modern weaponry, by which I do not mean nukes. When it was just a question of which debauched noble could afford more thugs or better assassins, sure. But 'how many Abrams has the Doge?'
  - exiguus 1y ago
    >But 'how many Abrams has the Doge?' As many as you can control with signal chat. Besides, I'm not sure if tanks like the Abrams are as important anymore. Nowadays, things like food and water really matter. For example, exporting corn is crucial. Also, having the soils needed to make modern tech, like chips and batteries, is super important. Therefore Greenland is.
    - throwanem 1y ago
      Show me the war where resources weren't important. But you fail to take my meaning, which is that of the two, bureaucracy is far more robust than aristocracy, because power held by aristocracy succeeds by lineage where that by bureaucracy does so by role - that is, in a fashion far less constrained by the available resource of satisfactory personnel. Every billionaire in function constitutes an aristocracy of one. Meanwhile, states have armed forces. A billionaire, in relying on money for power, implicitly also depends on continued access to the global financial system which gives money meaning, in order to exercise that power. States are not obligated to allow such access, and may easily prevent it in the limiting case by ensuring such trade comes with a side of explosives delivered at speed, which broadly suffices to deter desirable counterparties. Think what anyone may of such a thing, the fact is having an army or navy or air force means you can do it. Which billionaire has one of those?
noident 1y ago
> A sufficiently advanced algorithm will be able to find everything a person has ever posted online (by cross referencing, writing style, etc.) Is this like a sufficiently smart compiler? :) Stylometry is well-studied. You'll be happy to know that it is only practical when there are few suspect authors for a post and each author has a significant amount of text to sample. So, tying a pseudonymous post back to an author where anyone and everybody is a potential suspect is totally infeasible in the vast majority of cases. In the few cases where it is practical, it only creates a weak signal for further investigation at best. You might enjoy the paper Adversarial Stylometry: Circumventing Authorship Recognition to Preserve Privacy and Anonymity by Greenstadt et al.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- sitkack 1y ago
  Someone did a stylometry attack against hn awhile ago, it would with very high confidence unmask alt accounts on this site. It worked. There is zero reason to believe that it couldn't be applied on a grand scale.
  - AStonesThrow 1y ago
    How do y’all prove it worked, O Privacy Wonks? How do y’all establish ye Theory Of Stylometry, O Phrenology Majors? O, @dang confirms it on Mastodon or something??
    - squeeeeeeem 1y ago
      It found 11 of my alt accounts with 90% accuracy. Now I make a new alt every post despite HN rules. sorry, but it is essential to do so.
      - nixgeek 1y ago
        Adding an extra “e” for each doesn’t create much extra mystery requiring stylometry to unmask you. More seriously, why is this essential?
dfxm12 1y ago
determine their views and opinions with high accuracy The truth, accuracy doesn't matter to authoritarians. It doesn't matter to Trump, clearly, people are being sent away with zero evidence, sometimes without formal charges. That's the point of authoritarianism. The leader just does as he wishes. AI is not enabling Trump, the feckless system of checks and balances is. Similarly, W lied about wmd's, to get us into an endless war. It doesn't matter that this reason wasn't truthful. He got away with it and enriched himself and defense contractor buddies at the expense of the American people.
- Terr_ 1y ago
  Right: They often don't care about accuracy, only plausibility they can pick and choose from.
- Mountain_Skies 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - z0r 1y ago
    How on earth did you infer that from his post? I can't follow your logic at all. Is it because he criticized two Republican presidents by name? Did he lie?
  - BriggyDwiggs42 1y ago
    Classic left are authoritarians brainrot.
blackoil 1y ago
Listen, you can get one of these local LLMs - and let me tell you, some of them are tremendous, really tremendous - to write exactly like Trump. It's incredible, actually. People will come up to you all the time and they'll say, 'Sir, how do you do it? How do you write so beautifully?' And now, with these artificial intelligence things - which, by the way, I was talking about AI before anyone even knew what it was - you can have them copy his style perfectly. Amazing technology, really amazing.
- fc417fc802 1y ago
  The right to locally maintain fully private AI shall not be infringed ... ?
SecretDreams 1y ago
Well said. It's just a new lever to embolden the same shitty people and behaviours that keep tending to run society into the ground - but at a much larger scale.

tabarnacle 1y ago

Sure.. for folks who don’t worry about anonymity when sharing online. For those who prioritize anonymity, I’m doubtful.

throwanem 1y ago
So am I. They would be among the first and most quietly vanished in this scenario, being trivially identifiable from a God's-eye view.
fooker 1y ago
You can identify with a decent amount of confidence whether two paragraphs of text were written by the same person.

barbazoo 1y ago

That’s what the database is for then. https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-database-palantir-dystopian-alarm-2079688 https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-database-palantir-dyst...

throwanem 1y ago
Sure. https://www.criterion.com/films/211-brazil https://www.criterion.com/films/211-brazil

exiguus 1y ago

I'm not entirely convinced that nations will play as significant a role in the coming decades as they have historically. Currently, we observe a trend where affluent individuals are increasingly consolidating power, a phenomenon that is becoming more apparent in the public sphere. Notably, these individuals are also at the forefront of owning and controlling advancements in artificial intelligence. Coincidentally, this trend is often referred to as 'tech fascism,' bringing us back to the dictator schema.

throwanem 1y ago
States haven't always been a major feature of power. But we've never seen the interaction of personal power with modern weaponry, by which I do not mean nukes. When it was just a question of which debauched noble could afford more thugs or better assassins, sure. But 'how many Abrams has the Doge?'
- exiguus 1y ago
  >But 'how many Abrams has the Doge?' As many as you can control with signal chat. Besides, I'm not sure if tanks like the Abrams are as important anymore. Nowadays, things like food and water really matter. For example, exporting corn is crucial. Also, having the soils needed to make modern tech, like chips and batteries, is super important. Therefore Greenland is.
  - throwanem 1y ago
    Show me the war where resources weren't important. But you fail to take my meaning, which is that of the two, bureaucracy is far more robust than aristocracy, because power held by aristocracy succeeds by lineage where that by bureaucracy does so by role - that is, in a fashion far less constrained by the available resource of satisfactory personnel. Every billionaire in function constitutes an aristocracy of one. Meanwhile, states have armed forces. A billionaire, in relying on money for power, implicitly also depends on continued access to the global financial system which gives money meaning, in order to exercise that power. States are not obligated to allow such access, and may easily prevent it in the limiting case by ensuring such trade comes with a side of explosives delivered at speed, which broadly suffices to deter desirable counterparties. Think what anyone may of such a thing, the fact is having an army or navy or air force means you can do it. Which billionaire has one of those?

noident 1y ago

> A sufficiently advanced algorithm will be able to find everything a person has ever posted online (by cross referencing, writing style, etc.) Is this like a sufficiently smart compiler? :) Stylometry is well-studied. You'll be happy to know that it is only practical when there are few suspect authors for a post and each author has a significant amount of text to sample. So, tying a pseudonymous post back to an author where anyone and everybody is a potential suspect is totally infeasible in the vast majority of cases. In the few cases where it is practical, it only creates a weak signal for further investigation at best. You might enjoy the paper Adversarial Stylometry: Circumventing Authorship Recognition to Preserve Privacy and Anonymity by Greenstadt et al.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
sitkack 1y ago
Someone did a stylometry attack against hn awhile ago, it would with very high confidence unmask alt accounts on this site. It worked. There is zero reason to believe that it couldn't be applied on a grand scale.
- AStonesThrow 1y ago
  How do y’all prove it worked, O Privacy Wonks? How do y’all establish ye Theory Of Stylometry, O Phrenology Majors? O, @dang confirms it on Mastodon or something??
  - squeeeeeeem 1y ago
    It found 11 of my alt accounts with 90% accuracy. Now I make a new alt every post despite HN rules. sorry, but it is essential to do so.
    - nixgeek 1y ago
      Adding an extra “e” for each doesn’t create much extra mystery requiring stylometry to unmask you. More seriously, why is this essential?

dfxm12 1y ago

determine their views and opinions with high accuracy The truth, accuracy doesn't matter to authoritarians. It doesn't matter to Trump, clearly, people are being sent away with zero evidence, sometimes without formal charges. That's the point of authoritarianism. The leader just does as he wishes. AI is not enabling Trump, the feckless system of checks and balances is. Similarly, W lied about wmd's, to get us into an endless war. It doesn't matter that this reason wasn't truthful. He got away with it and enriched himself and defense contractor buddies at the expense of the American people.

Terr_ 1y ago
Right: They often don't care about accuracy, only plausibility they can pick and choose from.
Mountain_Skies 1y ago
[flagged]
- z0r 1y ago
  How on earth did you infer that from his post? I can't follow your logic at all. Is it because he criticized two Republican presidents by name? Did he lie?
- BriggyDwiggs42 1y ago
  Classic left are authoritarians brainrot.

blackoil 1y ago

Listen, you can get one of these local LLMs - and let me tell you, some of them are tremendous, really tremendous - to write exactly like Trump. It's incredible, actually. People will come up to you all the time and they'll say, 'Sir, how do you do it? How do you write so beautifully?' And now, with these artificial intelligence things - which, by the way, I was talking about AI before anyone even knew what it was - you can have them copy his style perfectly. Amazing technology, really amazing.

fc417fc802 1y ago
The right to locally maintain fully private AI shall not be infringed ... ?

SecretDreams 1y ago

Well said. It's just a new lever to embolden the same shitty people and behaviours that keep tending to run society into the ground - but at a much larger scale.