[cronix]

And to think the more people that add these things, the more of a seamless network it creates for "them." If 20% of houses have the ring doorbell (etc), capturing, processing and categorizing everything that goes by it with ML, how long will it take before they are able to track people basically everywhere? Even those who do not own these devices but happen to pass in front of them which will be increasingly impossible to avoid? Their AI will literally be watching you leave your house (from your neighbors) and driving to work, capturing your license plate and knowing who you are via facial recognition, watching (recording) everywhere you go. All nice and tidy with timestamps, stored forever with easy recall. Coupled with the other data they already have. Where where you Jan 27, 2023 at 19:23:43UTC? You'll likely forget by 2024, but Amazon will know and remember forever, thanks to your neighbor. Just think of how much better they can "target ads" with this data, or whatever their justification is, making the world a better place to live. Our antiquated and broken way of lawmaking will take 10 years at least to catch up. That's a lifetime at the current pace.

[sippeangelo]

Can we start calling it the AI? Turns out, the AI uprising we feared isn't some centralized supercomputer that somehow gained consciousness, but millions of otherwise isolated neural networks and tracking databases that are being consolidated by mindless drones (humans) in pursuit of profit.

We are the the missing consciousness that births the AI.

[hnick]

Emergent AI. No single component is smart but as a whole it's smart enough to enslave humanity. Fun.

[ethbro]

> but millions of otherwise isolated neural networks and tracking databases that are being consolidated by mindless drones (humans) in pursuit of profit.

So... Bezos?

[mrkstu]

Borg King Bezos

[L_226]

Yeah, humanity is probably just the biological bootloader of a silicon general intelligence (pretty sure I'm paraphrasing Musk here).

[a3n]

Our laws will never catch up; those devices watch lawmakers too.

I can imagine a late afternoon meeting in a lawmaker's office. The lobbyist shows the lawmaker almost his entire day, to demonstrate the "benefit" to the lawmaker, from when he leaves his DC apartment in the morning, to his one hour stay at the No-Tell-Mo-Tell, to the video of him being slapped on the back as he pockets another lobbyist's cash.

[vageli]

> Our laws will never catch up; those devices watch lawmakers too.

> I can imagine a late afternoon meeting in a lawmaker's office. The lobbyist shows the lawmaker almost his entire day, to demonstrate the "benefit" to the lawmaker, from when he leaves his DC apartment in the morning, to his one hour stay at the No-Tell-Mo-Tell, to the video of him being slapped on the back as he pockets another lobbyist's cash.

If this data is collected, there is no doubt in my mind that it will be sought after by malicious actors. Maybe then there will be legislation.

[jammygit]

What we really need is an A.I. nonprofit who’s only job is to abuse to privacy of powerful people until they insist on legislation.

[BurningFrog]

I'm convinced all public life will be recorded in the not at all distant future. Cameras are just too cheap and useful. As is storage.

It's not a conspiracy, just an inevitable consequence of technical progress.

The only "countermeasure" I can imagine is to have several independent surveillance networks. If hobbyists put up one for the public, we can at least watch the watchmen as much as they watch us.

[leppr]

> If hobbyists put up one for the public, we can at least watch the watchmen as much as they watch us.

All you'll have is a different viewpoint on the same watched public. "The watchmen" tend to be geographically segregated and use more private modes of transportation.

[yabadabadoes]

It can and should be made illegal which is the only practical countermeasure for most things. (I.e. every electronic device manufacturer is relying on EMP disruption devices being illegal.)

In Switzerland it is usually illegal to cover public space with CCTV and one is required to post signs visible before entering a private space with CCTV. AFAIK this rule technically would and should apply to guests and video in the home. It definitely applies to businesses filming employees.

[spyder]

Same thing with Tesla cars: they are already remotely asking their AI in their cars to send back recordings that they are interested in by giving example photos. It's used for improving their self-driving and they say it's "anonymized", but it's a little scary thinking about how it could be used in the wrong hands (if there is a hack, or some agency forces them). For example asking for faces or to detect certain behaviors. It's not just stored data, but it's data ready for querying with powerful distributed AI in a self-driving remotely controllable car.

https://youtu.be/Ucp0TTmvqOE?t=7611

[donkeyd]

I sometimes joke that Elon could easily get rid of the people who are getting a free Roadster (through referrals) by sending them an evil version of Autopilot. It's a joke, but there's technically nothing that could stop him.

[heartbreak]

Far more than 20% of people around you are carrying a cell phone.

[bjornjaja]

Harry Potter has an iPhone