It’s possible, undoubtedly. That’s why in the political sphere there is so much concern among people who follow tech news about Elon Musk absconding with the entire data collection of the IRS and SSA, to which he had no legal access rights in the first place, and then his businesses have some questionable federal contracts that if the federal government was a public corporation, members of the board would be answering questions to the SEC.
Then, there is the additional spate dodgy contracts with palantir and separate contracts with data brokers, most concerningly those who connect user identities across something like 200 different social media sites and aggregate it so that they have a dossier on any singular individual, and then are able to aggregate that up over any psychometric attribute the customer wishes. For example, give me a list of all the people posting critical statements on fb and then pull in a few examples of their postings elsewhere, would be a trivial request.
Comparing the situation of all of the above to, let’s say, an AK-47, the Cambridge Analytica scandal looks like a potato gun. The super scary part is that we’re already seeing abuses of civil rights and mistaken aggression by law enforcement based on blind trust in AI software. The potential is there, and it’s already been shown that law enforcement agencies will use it to overreach their authority. It’s obviously a violation of the 4th Amendment that protects citizens from undue search and seizure. The way they get around that is to just lease the equipment and data from the tech vendors. That way, they don’t need a warrant because they’re not gathering the data, and the data is not subject to a FOIA request, but some court rulings are challenging that assertion.
Nonetheless, the argument that, if you’re not a wrongdoer, then you have nothing to hide is dishonest at best and more likely a justification for government overreach that they hope too few people will question. If those same people in positions of power really believe that, they should release their donor lists and push for super PACs to do the same. Somehow these paragons of virtue have something to hide in the reverse position. While we’re at it. Take all the curtains off their windows and make public their credit card records, since, according to them, it’s not an insult to human dignity to invade privacy without any probable cause or even evidence that a crime has been committed or is in progress.
okay sorry about all that, but my point is that this is neither conspiracy theory nor science fiction. It’s happening now but so far it’s not being exploited to the degree it could be. I think it’s a combination of a lack of technical ability amongst the current politicians in power, and a calculated strategy to introduce the tools so gradually that the general public just shrugs their shoulders and accepts that the genie is out of the bottle. Even worse, we’re already seeing the “it’s necessary to protect the children” argument working at the state level in several states. The general public has been proven to be willing to give up their civil liberties in exchange for the safety of their children, but they are also showing an unwillingness to protect children from, say, poverty, so it’s really just emotional manipulation and the public doesn’t question it for fear of being labeled a child killer or soft on child predators. The red meat is that they want to see people punished, and that emotional appeal overrides any demand for logic and evidence.
Then, there is the additional spate dodgy contracts with palantir and separate contracts with data brokers, most concerningly those who connect user identities across something like 200 different social media sites and aggregate it so that they have a dossier on any singular individual, and then are able to aggregate that up over any psychometric attribute the customer wishes. For example, give me a list of all the people posting critical statements on fb and then pull in a few examples of their postings elsewhere, would be a trivial request.
Comparing the situation of all of the above to, let’s say, an AK-47, the Cambridge Analytica scandal looks like a potato gun. The super scary part is that we’re already seeing abuses of civil rights and mistaken aggression by law enforcement based on blind trust in AI software. The potential is there, and it’s already been shown that law enforcement agencies will use it to overreach their authority. It’s obviously a violation of the 4th Amendment that protects citizens from undue search and seizure. The way they get around that is to just lease the equipment and data from the tech vendors. That way, they don’t need a warrant because they’re not gathering the data, and the data is not subject to a FOIA request, but some court rulings are challenging that assertion.
Nonetheless, the argument that, if you’re not a wrongdoer, then you have nothing to hide is dishonest at best and more likely a justification for government overreach that they hope too few people will question. If those same people in positions of power really believe that, they should release their donor lists and push for super PACs to do the same. Somehow these paragons of virtue have something to hide in the reverse position. While we’re at it. Take all the curtains off their windows and make public their credit card records, since, according to them, it’s not an insult to human dignity to invade privacy without any probable cause or even evidence that a crime has been committed or is in progress.
okay sorry about all that, but my point is that this is neither conspiracy theory nor science fiction. It’s happening now but so far it’s not being exploited to the degree it could be. I think it’s a combination of a lack of technical ability amongst the current politicians in power, and a calculated strategy to introduce the tools so gradually that the general public just shrugs their shoulders and accepts that the genie is out of the bottle. Even worse, we’re already seeing the “it’s necessary to protect the children” argument working at the state level in several states. The general public has been proven to be willing to give up their civil liberties in exchange for the safety of their children, but they are also showing an unwillingness to protect children from, say, poverty, so it’s really just emotional manipulation and the public doesn’t question it for fear of being labeled a child killer or soft on child predators. The red meat is that they want to see people punished, and that emotional appeal overrides any demand for logic and evidence.
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