4 ms·

How AI and surveillance capitalism are undermining democracy

64 points by pseudolus 1y ago

semplu 1y ago
[flagged]
gyanchawdhary 1y ago
[flagged]
- add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
  Man up and say what you want to say. None of this weakling passive aggressive quoting a line from the article like we're supposed to believe that makes it a smoking gun. If you think it's a defensible position that the only people who can have a legitmate opinion on this topic are the hypothetical pure neutrals who don't affiliate with any party, make it yourself and stand by it.
  - gyanchawdhary 1y ago
    [flagged]
- vanc_cefepime 1y ago
  Instead of making this Republican vs Democrat issue, how about you complete that paragraph. "Suresh served in the Biden-Harris administration as Assistant Director for Science and Justice in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. In that capacity, he helped co-author the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights. He was named by Fast Company in 2023 to their AI20 list of thinkers shaping the world of generative AI." Seems to me he wants rules and legislation around AI so it protects the American people. AI Bill of rights was deleted when this new administration took over but available at https://archive.is/XEFJJ https://archive.is/XEFJJ "To advance President Biden’s vision, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has identified five principles that should guide the design, use, and deployment of automated systems to protect the American public in the age of artificial intelligence. The Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights is a guide for a society that protects all people from these threats—and uses technologies in ways that reinforce our highest values"
  - gyanchawdhary 1y ago
    Yeah .. no . Firstly there’s really no such thing as “surveillance capitalism.” If we’re going to start coining terms like that, then why stop there .. lets call Oracle and Postgres “database capitalism or Microsoft vs Apple as “OS capitalism .. or Salesforce “CRM capitalism,” or even Google Docs as spreadsheet capitalism .. anyone who writes a an article with this sort of title is usually (actually almost always) a fraud
    - jazzyjackson 1y ago
      That's your opinion and that's fine but surveillance capitalism is not a freshly minted term - it simply supposes that the behavioral data collected on all of us is a new form of capital to be accumulated, exploited, and hoarded
      - gyanchawdhary 1y ago
        Yes, that I agree with .. but it’s still a pointless term crafted more for optics than substance. It doesn’t really add clarity, it just feels like linguistic inflation. Same vibe as when people say “weaponisation” to inject drama and a false sense of danger
jondwillis 1y ago
IDK how we solve this without some serious regulatory changes and the backing awareness and political will. An “a scanner darkly” approach could be kind of effective to pollute online information about yourself. If there are 1000 “me” profiles all saying different stuff, it’d be somewhat hard to pin down what I think and persecute me. This doesn’t work as well or maybe at all for sufficiently doxxed people who are producing content for a living, public political organizers, etc.
- drdaeman 1y ago
  > If there are 1000 “me” profiles all saying different stuff, it’d be somewhat hard to pin down what I think and persecute me. Noise-drowning only works against profiling that's set up with intent to measure you, rather than punish you. I'm afraid, in autocracies and dictatorships, it takes one "me" profile (that could be not even mine) that said something out of current goodthink to be persecuted. Just look at what's going on in Russia. The key point of those "we'll be using AI to monitor everything you publish" announcements is not in even it its directly stated goal. It's in the chilling effects this creates, making people avoid expressing their opinions except for unquestionably safe ones.
  - spwa4 1y ago
    The same would happen in the EU, where police forces are scanning social media to find offenders. I'd strongly advise having no public profile of any kind, or perhaps only a professional one where you religiously follow the rule of not posting anything remotely private.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - drdaeman 1y ago
      > I'd strongly advise having no public profile of any kind Unfortunately, this is effectively a suggestion to voluntarily degrade one's ability to have connect with others online. Either you participate and connect with people - and nearly inevitably leave information that can be used to build profiles, or you voluntarily exclude yourself from it. Sterile online profiles do not facilitate connections.
orbisvicis 1y ago
I've only gotten 1/4 through, but isn't the horse thoroughly dead at this point...
measurablefunc 1y ago
Most people are fine w/ the deal corporations like Alphabet & Meta have made w/ them. They are perfectly happy to trade their privacy for convenient access to "information" held on their servers & data centers. I don't think AI makes much difference here b/c if we can trust the numbers from OpenAI & Google then it seems like people are happy w/ the deal here as well. They don't mind letting these corporations gather their queries & feedback as long as the perceived value they get from the software justifies paying their subscription fee. Politicians understand all this & so they've determined that the people are ok w/ any amount of surveillance as long as they get some amount of utility out of it so they will continue to build out the data centers & surveillance infrastructure. It's not like there aren't satellites already in orbit that can zoom in on a penny in a parking lot anyway so what's a few more data centers & cameras to add to the mix & then pipe the data stream into an AI for "anomaly" detection?
- spwa4 1y ago
  That's why governments do it using face scanning cameras, license plate scanning, downloading social media profiles, uploading all medical data to government servers (minus any large diagnostic data, like images, because that costs too much), demanding FANGs give them access to chats, ... You know, behind people's backs. Because if figure out what is done with this data, who has access to it, people would never agree to that. For example, youth services uses data on medical treatments people in families receive to find kids to "protect" (ie. abduct). Medical data is also shared with nationalized insurance and hospitals to deny treatments "if it's your own fault" (e.g. find past drug tests in case of organ transplants) Btw: if you're in the EU, remember, in almost all cases you can refuse a drug test, or any test, and for the love of god, in all cases you want to refuse this. First: the fact that you had a drug test for any reason will be used against you. Second: if for whatever reason it's positive and you need a new heart 20 years later ... best of luck. The way you know it's gone pretty far is that mass surveillance + AI is being used for parking tickets. How far down the priority list is that? Imho, these are things people would never agree to if the choice was clearly presented in parliament. No way. And that's in democracies.
ProllyInfamous 1y ago
I read Gov Greg Abbott's book Broken but Unbowed -- I am generally not his supporter, but grew up among semi-conservative Texans under Governor Ann Richards (D) — loved her wit (she was also a family friend, Beloved Woman)! An (the only) interesting concept that Gov Abbott (R) explores in his book is about the US States' collective right (under our Constitution) to call for a national convention for ANY REASON, initiated by a super-majority of states in mutual agreement on topic only, in order to propose Amendments (all prior were done by the Federal Congressional route). This seems like the most-reasonable solution to introduce some sort of technology bill of rights (e.g. privacy; AI governance; data collection practices; right to cancel; opt-ins) — to address limitations to our geriatric Congress' inability to get with the goddamn modern times. We still operate on telecommunications laws from the friggin' eighties!!! We might as well overhaul all of healthcare, too... and this really isn't too far fetched (I don't have the book in front of me... but there have been prior attempts to call such state conventions, decades ago). ...perhaps end Citizens' United? It's certainly time for some citizen initiative (via our State Congresses). ---- If Sir Glubb's Fate of Empires taught me anything, most societial governances don't last too much longer than 250 years (¡happy birthday USA!). I think ours can, with massive but only with massive overhaul. Giving advice to Gov Abbott: you're doing a great job for your state as Governor; stay there (don't run for president, again — you'll just waste time better-spent preparing Texas for what's next?); perhaps you should lift the boot up off your citizens' impoverished throats just. a. little. bit. ...but otherwise, Keep Texas Beautiful. [and say `hi` to James for me — it's been too long].
- macartain 1y ago
  great rabbit-hole - https://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf https://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf - for those unencumbered by search engine skills. 250 years indeed...
  - ProllyInfamous 1y ago
    This is the most accurate non-fiction ("best history book") I have ever read, and I consume 70+ books annually. It's only a few dozen pages long (see link above for PDF). By my grandfather's reading (~80yo), he began adulting during the chapter titled "Age of the Welfare State" (60s/70s/nam/80s) — but us Millenials I believe are truly in the last chapter: "Age of Decadence" . As the old saying goes: It may not be the end of times... but intermission was A. LONG. TIME. AGO...
user1999919 1y ago
privacy laws and $25/hr min wage would change everything right now

64 points by pseudolus 1y ago

semplu 1y ago

[flagged]

gyanchawdhary 1y ago

[flagged]

add-sub-mul-div 1y ago
Man up and say what you want to say. None of this weakling passive aggressive quoting a line from the article like we're supposed to believe that makes it a smoking gun. If you think it's a defensible position that the only people who can have a legitmate opinion on this topic are the hypothetical pure neutrals who don't affiliate with any party, make it yourself and stand by it.
- gyanchawdhary 1y ago
  [flagged]
vanc_cefepime 1y ago
Instead of making this Republican vs Democrat issue, how about you complete that paragraph. "Suresh served in the Biden-Harris administration as Assistant Director for Science and Justice in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. In that capacity, he helped co-author the Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights. He was named by Fast Company in 2023 to their AI20 list of thinkers shaping the world of generative AI." Seems to me he wants rules and legislation around AI so it protects the American people. AI Bill of rights was deleted when this new administration took over but available at https://archive.is/XEFJJ https://archive.is/XEFJJ "To advance President Biden’s vision, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy has identified five principles that should guide the design, use, and deployment of automated systems to protect the American public in the age of artificial intelligence. The Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights is a guide for a society that protects all people from these threats—and uses technologies in ways that reinforce our highest values"
- gyanchawdhary 1y ago
  Yeah .. no . Firstly there’s really no such thing as “surveillance capitalism.” If we’re going to start coining terms like that, then why stop there .. lets call Oracle and Postgres “database capitalism or Microsoft vs Apple as “OS capitalism .. or Salesforce “CRM capitalism,” or even Google Docs as spreadsheet capitalism .. anyone who writes a an article with this sort of title is usually (actually almost always) a fraud
  - jazzyjackson 1y ago
    That's your opinion and that's fine but surveillance capitalism is not a freshly minted term - it simply supposes that the behavioral data collected on all of us is a new form of capital to be accumulated, exploited, and hoarded
    - gyanchawdhary 1y ago
      Yes, that I agree with .. but it’s still a pointless term crafted more for optics than substance. It doesn’t really add clarity, it just feels like linguistic inflation. Same vibe as when people say “weaponisation” to inject drama and a false sense of danger

jondwillis 1y ago

IDK how we solve this without some serious regulatory changes and the backing awareness and political will. An “a scanner darkly” approach could be kind of effective to pollute online information about yourself. If there are 1000 “me” profiles all saying different stuff, it’d be somewhat hard to pin down what I think and persecute me. This doesn’t work as well or maybe at all for sufficiently doxxed people who are producing content for a living, public political organizers, etc.

drdaeman 1y ago
> If there are 1000 “me” profiles all saying different stuff, it’d be somewhat hard to pin down what I think and persecute me. Noise-drowning only works against profiling that's set up with intent to measure you, rather than punish you. I'm afraid, in autocracies and dictatorships, it takes one "me" profile (that could be not even mine) that said something out of current goodthink to be persecuted. Just look at what's going on in Russia. The key point of those "we'll be using AI to monitor everything you publish" announcements is not in even it its directly stated goal. It's in the chilling effects this creates, making people avoid expressing their opinions except for unquestionably safe ones.
- spwa4 1y ago
  The same would happen in the EU, where police forces are scanning social media to find offenders. I'd strongly advise having no public profile of any kind, or perhaps only a professional one where you religiously follow the rule of not posting anything remotely private.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - drdaeman 1y ago
    > I'd strongly advise having no public profile of any kind Unfortunately, this is effectively a suggestion to voluntarily degrade one's ability to have connect with others online. Either you participate and connect with people - and nearly inevitably leave information that can be used to build profiles, or you voluntarily exclude yourself from it. Sterile online profiles do not facilitate connections.

orbisvicis 1y ago

I've only gotten 1/4 through, but isn't the horse thoroughly dead at this point...

measurablefunc 1y ago

Most people are fine w/ the deal corporations like Alphabet & Meta have made w/ them. They are perfectly happy to trade their privacy for convenient access to "information" held on their servers & data centers. I don't think AI makes much difference here b/c if we can trust the numbers from OpenAI & Google then it seems like people are happy w/ the deal here as well. They don't mind letting these corporations gather their queries & feedback as long as the perceived value they get from the software justifies paying their subscription fee. Politicians understand all this & so they've determined that the people are ok w/ any amount of surveillance as long as they get some amount of utility out of it so they will continue to build out the data centers & surveillance infrastructure. It's not like there aren't satellites already in orbit that can zoom in on a penny in a parking lot anyway so what's a few more data centers & cameras to add to the mix & then pipe the data stream into an AI for "anomaly" detection?

spwa4 1y ago
That's why governments do it using face scanning cameras, license plate scanning, downloading social media profiles, uploading all medical data to government servers (minus any large diagnostic data, like images, because that costs too much), demanding FANGs give them access to chats, ... You know, behind people's backs. Because if figure out what is done with this data, who has access to it, people would never agree to that. For example, youth services uses data on medical treatments people in families receive to find kids to "protect" (ie. abduct). Medical data is also shared with nationalized insurance and hospitals to deny treatments "if it's your own fault" (e.g. find past drug tests in case of organ transplants) Btw: if you're in the EU, remember, in almost all cases you can refuse a drug test, or any test, and for the love of god, in all cases you want to refuse this. First: the fact that you had a drug test for any reason will be used against you. Second: if for whatever reason it's positive and you need a new heart 20 years later ... best of luck. The way you know it's gone pretty far is that mass surveillance + AI is being used for parking tickets. How far down the priority list is that? Imho, these are things people would never agree to if the choice was clearly presented in parliament. No way. And that's in democracies.

ProllyInfamous 1y ago

I read Gov Greg Abbott's book Broken but Unbowed -- I am generally not his supporter, but grew up among semi-conservative Texans under Governor Ann Richards (D) — loved her wit (she was also a family friend, Beloved Woman)! An (the only) interesting concept that Gov Abbott (R) explores in his book is about the US States' collective right (under our Constitution) to call for a national convention for ANY REASON, initiated by a super-majority of states in mutual agreement on topic only, in order to propose Amendments (all prior were done by the Federal Congressional route). This seems like the most-reasonable solution to introduce some sort of technology bill of rights (e.g. privacy; AI governance; data collection practices; right to cancel; opt-ins) — to address limitations to our geriatric Congress' inability to get with the goddamn modern times. We still operate on telecommunications laws from the friggin' eighties!!! We might as well overhaul all of healthcare, too... and this really isn't too far fetched (I don't have the book in front of me... but there have been prior attempts to call such state conventions, decades ago). ...perhaps end Citizens' United? It's certainly time for some citizen initiative (via our State Congresses). ---- If Sir Glubb's Fate of Empires taught me anything, most societial governances don't last too much longer than 250 years (¡happy birthday USA!). I think ours can, with massive but only with massive overhaul. Giving advice to Gov Abbott: you're doing a great job for your state as Governor; stay there (don't run for president, again — you'll just waste time better-spent preparing Texas for what's next?); perhaps you should lift the boot up off your citizens' impoverished throats just. a. little. bit. ...but otherwise, Keep Texas Beautiful. [and say `hi` to James for me — it's been too long].

macartain 1y ago
great rabbit-hole - https://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf https://people.uncw.edu/kozloffm/glubb.pdf - for those unencumbered by search engine skills. 250 years indeed...
- ProllyInfamous 1y ago
  This is the most accurate non-fiction ("best history book") I have ever read, and I consume 70+ books annually. It's only a few dozen pages long (see link above for PDF). By my grandfather's reading (~80yo), he began adulting during the chapter titled "Age of the Welfare State" (60s/70s/nam/80s) — but us Millenials I believe are truly in the last chapter: "Age of Decadence" . As the old saying goes: It may not be the end of times... but intermission was A. LONG. TIME. AGO...

user1999919 1y ago

privacy laws and $25/hr min wage would change everything right now