[jspdown]

Domestic mass surveillance might feel tolerable when you live in the country conducting it. But how would you feel about other countries adopting similar policies, and thereby mass-surveilling the American people? Because that's exactly what these policies authorize when applied to the rest of the world.

[amunozo]

Americans always think they're exceptional so they have the divine right to do things that the rest cannot.

[Dansvidania]

Maybe that’s why they like Israel so much.

[raw_anon_1111]

I would feel much better about other countries mass surveillance than the US. China for instance can’t do nearly as much to me as the US justice system can.

[thunky]

Ok so now connect the mass surveillance system to an automated killing system that can blow you up in the grocery store because you're standing in line next to its target.

[raw_anon_1111]

Given a choice between someone blowing me up because I’m next to a high value asset and worrying about jack booted masked thugs with qualified immunity killing me and being cheered by 40% of the population - I’ll take my chance with China having my info before ICE or the local police.

[pavel_lishin]

I'm not sure if you're talking about America or a foreign nation in this example.

[bloqs]

Yes but you would be dead before it can affect your quality of life so its unimpactful. The former can very much impact your life

[kelvinjps10]

The fear itself of that happening is impactful, and they know that and will use it

[sakompella]

the logical extension is that everyone should kill themselves right now so that they never suffer again

[thunky]

Glib take. I think most would rather not be killed given the choice. Especially if they have kids or others that rely on them.

[victorio]

The way the anthropic statement was written really stood out to me. How they posture themselves in favour of surveillance for foreign countries or the existence of fully autonomous weapons if they don't threaten US citizen lifes.

I wonder if this is how some non minority of American thinks or was just worded like that to try to appeal to the "most radical patriots"

[hnfong]

I'm pretty neutral in this fiasco, but if a company is willing to consider *in principle* providing services to the *Department of War*, they'd better be OK with their services being used to conduct surveillance or kill people of other countries...

I think war is bad and generally a stupid thing to do, but my point is that if they were negotiating terms with the department at all, it's really a given they'd be OK with the stuff you took issue with.

[ozgung]

The bad news for American people is that "others" are pretty good at these technologies. When I read an important AI paper chances are all the names on it are non-American, even for papers from American labs. In a real war, this becomes problematic.

Every nation has some bias but I think Americans have power poisoning for being the dominant power for so long. They think they are entitled to do anything and believe they are the good guys in the history. Well...

[mlrtime]

When you look at the world as a action movie with good/bad guys, then you're going to have a pretty bad time.

There are only good/bad people for moments in time. Some are good for longer than others.

But I get it, anti-American sentiment is very popular right now.

[kakacik]

How else do you suggest common folks are supposed to view world, or well anything?

Americans do the same, hence whole world got ttump. 95% of the world aint US, so such logic is even easier for almost whole mankind - is US force of good or evil? Different places would give you different answers, and most americans would not like the actual spread these days.

[matheusmoreira]

Their "power poisoning" is warranted. The USA's military capabilities dwarf those of the rest of the world. There is not a single country on earth that can stand up to America militarily.

We are lucky that they never went full Roman Empire on us. That's only due to their own restraint. We may see them falter increasingly often as their economic power gets eroded by other nations. Just look at Venezuela.

[lostlogin]

What’s an American name?

I thought the US was a country of immigrants (or was before it started hunting them)?

[cucumber3732842]

Other countries can't send armed thugs to my door over petty stuff like my local government can.

Nobody in the history of ever has been concerned that the agents of some foreign country may know what they read, who they associate with or what kind of penis pills they buy or whatever, the threat has always been that those local enough to do violence on you might come into that information.

[LudwigNagasena]

It’s especially ironic considering the title and the fact that many employees are not US citizens.

[davesque]

I don't think it will feel even remotely tolerable in the US. I've been heavily critical of Trump on a regular basis on the public internet ever since he showed up 10 years ago. I doubt a government surveillance AI would miss this. Of course, there are probably millions of people like me, but given the behavior of the government recently, I really have to wonder what they might do to people like me once we've been put on a list.