AI in the now... China, "security" and "efficiency" vs individual freedom?
In China you’ll find the most progressive use of AI worldwide.
In general AI and surveillance are seen here as an urgent need to increase security.
This might sound strange to “western” ears but you can hear again and again that this is simply based on a completely different tradition in this regard.
Personal freedom of the individual isn’t seen as so important.
How does all this fit together? The old Chinese high culture, the modern industrial complexes and modern cities, and everywhere surveillance cameras/tech.
In Shenzhen you can see how far surveillance tech can be taken.
They’ve got an control room of the “smart city” where all the surveillance tech is concentrated in.
A movie theater size big screen shows all of the surveillance data, including infrastructure data like water supply, power supply, or the rise of new citizens of the city to plan for instance schools, public transportation and so on.
All this data is collected and processed by AI and all shown in real time.
This flagship project was developed together with Huawei, and with it the city is now more efficient so stated by Chinese officials. It is officially town planning on a never before seen level.
All kinds of additional data flows into this data heap like the number of hospital beds in total, how many are occupied at the moment, the number of health care professionals in the city, differentiated by nurses, doctors and so on.
Every data point that is collected and monitored somewhere in the city is used in this AI powered monitoring of Shengzhen.
Oh, and a steadily rising number of employees of the city permanently wear bodycams with life feed to the control center for “inspections” for instance.
You have stationary mounted surveillance tech everywhere, mobile surveillance tech on and in public transportation, air surveillance tech by drones and satellite imaging, and body cams and of course most of these additionally equipped with microphones. Every video or audio feed can of course, and will I assume, be used for facial recognition, voice recognition. I also assume that newer AI developments that sense stress, lies and so on in these feeds are also in use because if you have the data why not use it for this too!?
Even in restaurant kitchens you find installed surveillance cameras to monitor the tidiness and hygiene.
You better not cross the street on a red light. If you do so you’ll be detected by facial recognition and fined.
Officials explain that the system of course also monitors who looks at these surveillance feed, films and photos. “Unlawful” access to the surveillance data is harshly punished. The citizens of Shengzhen like all this a lot so another official statement.
Total monitoring maybe right now unthinkable outside of China but there an absolute norm.
Chinese officials from the “Smart police services” explain that this total monitoring isn’t seen as and issue and that crime numbers are constantly falling due to this.
Everything is logged, monitored, measured and rated.
Total transparency for an "secure" and "efficient" society?
In an authoritarian state the dictatorship of data might not seem to be an issue for the rulers.
What happens with all this data on a personal level for an citizen?
Well, if you follow the rules your social scoring stays intact. In the set of rules you can live your life without any constraints on your consuming of goods and amenities and “personal freedom”.
If you don’t follow the rules this impacts your social scoring and they will punish you by reducing access to everything including buying goods, gas, travel tickets and so on and of course, depending on your failures to comply put you in jail.
Since all this collides with so many fundamental principles of western societies you might think that big international corporations would not be involved in such total monitoring efforts.
Well think again…
Check out this article here https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/western-and-chinese-tech-companies-reportedly-involved-in-development-of-surveillance-technology
So, of course big tech outside of China is involved in the making and refining of this Orwellian nightmare.
After doing some research into this field I have a lot of questions that I can’t answer at the moment…
Try it for yourself!
- Is trust better than to verify everything? (don't mix that up with crypto btw ;-))
- How much of your personal freedom are you willing to give up for security?
- How much of all this is already the norm in western societies, maybe not openly and admittingly, but at least on the level of the intelligence community?
- How can you protect yourself against this?
- How much of our so called regulations enforce the corrosion of privacy and personal freedom (KYC/AML)?
…and the list would go on and on if I don’t stop here.
Let me know what you think!
Gif from my friend https://twitter.com/smilinglllama!
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