from Hacker News

The Panopticon Is Already Here

by phsource on 8/2/20, 2:20 PM with 106 comments

  • by eivarv on 8/2/20, 8:49 PM

    Here's hoping for a Butlerian Jihad... or, you know, just introducing privacy legislation that make specific outcomes, not methods, illegal – in the same way that murder is illegal, regardless of method, tools, etc.

    While Tethics and AI are buzzwords du jour, the problem is more general: The weakening of liberal democratic values.

    We need laws and regulation that guarantee privacy more concretely as a foundational right.

  • by mathieubordere on 8/2/20, 5:03 PM

    It’s a good, chilling read but this sentence right at the end bothered me.

    “Until they secure their personal liberty, at some unimaginable cost, free people everywhere will have to hope against hope that the world’s most intelligent machines are made elsewhere.”

    I don’t agree, with the “right” people in charge, the intelligent machines pose a risk to humankind everywhere.

  • by dccoolgai on 8/2/20, 4:25 PM

    There is a lot to read here, but it is all important and all possible. I don't know that it can even be stopped at this point, it's just an index to check on periodically to confirm "ok, that's how far down the path we are right now".

  • by mcshicks on 8/2/20, 7:37 PM

    Stuck at home with more time on my hands I've been rereading a lot of old sf. I just finished the last of John Twelve Hawk's 4th realm trilogy which has a modern technological Panopticon society as it's central theme. While some of the technological speculation is strictly fiction, it's surprising how much the series (last volume published 2009) foreshadows modern surveillance trends. The trends mentioned in the article could have dropped right into the story.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_Realm_Trilogy

  • by erikerikson on 8/2/20, 10:00 PM

    Does the technology exist? Can we put the genie back in the bottle? So then what?

    This article and a lot of the literature assumes the same tools are not also turned upon the managers of society (i.e. that they get to use the times in secret). Many fear that knowledge of our lives will support interference in our lives. Perhaps any such interference must be just as observable and prohibited by law in a free society.

    Who watches the watchers? We all could. When there is a conflict or question we have records to review and public opinion to adjudicate.

    Of course we would have to rethink a number of assumable cultural expectations.

  • by chrisweekly on 8/2/20, 4:48 PM

    "A crude version of such a system is already in operation in China’s northwestern territory of Xinjiang, where more than 1 million Muslim Uighurs have been imprisoned, the largest internment of an ethnic-religious minority since the fall of the Third Reich."

    There's so much in this article that merits comment / discussion, but this sentence really jumped out at me. I'd been vaguely aware that this kind of thing was happening in the PRC, but not at this historic scale....

    Western values matter more than ever. Here's hoping for a sea change this fall.

  • by ALittleLight on 8/2/20, 9:47 PM

    Very sad and horrifying to read about. Worse because I don't know what constructive things I can do in this context.

    AI is a race that absolutely must be won by good actors rather than totalitarian states.

  • by ilaksh on 8/3/20, 2:01 AM

    My personal belief is that the problems are being oversimplified and that is very counterproductive.

    I'm sure people will misinterpret what I am trying to say. But, it is framed as a "democracy or tyranny" question. I believe that although the authoritarianism is quite horrific in some ways, in some respects there are actually advantages. Which, if you are still reading, is not to suggest in any way that it is the correct path, but maybe is a hint that our current "democratic system" may not be quite what it is cracked up to be either.

    Again, in no way suggesting we should get closer to a closed system, but I feel like honest evaluation will see very significant deficiencies with western governments such as the United States. For example, looking at the extreme political divide in the country sometimes makes government seem like a joke.

    I personally believe that the best and maybe the only way to move forward constructively is to be realistic about the flaws in both extremely divergent views (east and west) and think of a totally new shared philosophy and way for government to operate..

    But most likely that will not happen, and I also personally believe that another world war may be stimulated by poor technical adjustment to global accounting collapse (along with the complete failure of cultural and political integration). I think if this occurs then it will prove that humans are not fit to control the planet, and hope that we will soon have competent and (one can hope benign) but much more sophisticated AIs that we can pass the torch of evolution to.

  • by daxfohl on 8/2/20, 5:25 PM

    Sounds like we're heading to a new era of feudalism.

  • by WealthVsSurvive on 8/2/20, 9:36 PM

    Let's try a thought experiment. Suppose that human intelligence and consciousness are not ends unto themselves: I think therefore I am is false. Suppose that human intelligence is secondary to the will to power, to life, which is merely a chemical that repeats or does not: I am that I am, just an infinite paperclip factory. Suppose what is meant by consciousness and feeling is merely a death/not-death projection machine that attempts to conjure scenarios of fear and joy, dreams and nightmares, through the dimension of time, via memory stored in gray matter. Now this human AI creates a tool which can read the nuances of the human AI and bend them to its will.

    What occurs after?

  • by airstrike on 8/2/20, 6:32 PM

  • by api on 8/2/20, 5:06 PM

    We are creating a concentration camp for ourselves to get people to click ads.

  • by drummer on 8/2/20, 4:58 PM

    A good read. Again, imagine such a government in charge of universal basic income distribution and the majority of 'citizens' dependent on that. Not a bright future.