Larry Ellison on AI-Powered Surveillance [video] (2024)

I don't trust any government to utilize power like that and I certainly don't trust any singularly powerful person to define "best behavior". I can't even trust my elected representatives to act in my best interest.

Even if you have a "good" government, those do not last and AI surveillance serves only to entrench existing power at the expense of freedoms of the general populace at best.

It's interesting that the constitution prevents America from having a king, or at least it used to, but maybe the founders didn't think about other kinds of kings.

Because we're in a place, or we're getting to a place, where that's exactly what we have.

Like they’ve been chipping away at a stonewall for decades and they’ve finally blasted through the wall

https://www.wired.com/story/larry-ellison-is-a-shadow-presid...

When will these geezers age out?

Thanks OP.

Some previous discussions among fifteen others:

Omnipresent AI cameras will ensure good behavior, says Larry Ellison

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41562750

Larry Ellison: vast AI surveillance can ensure citizens are on best behavior

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42825097

- School attendance and parent pickup coordination. With a combination of face recognition, transit-station like gates, and license plate readers, parent pickup of kids is enforced.[1] Because they're watching.

- Campus-wide monitoring.[2] "Detects abnormal behavior ... such as people gathering"

- Detect climbing on fence [3]

Those are just samples. They offer everything from parking lot gates to millimeter microwave weapon detection. And with the newer control systems, it's all integrated into one comprehensive Big Brother system.

"See clearer. Go further."

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULsEFDwVKIs

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sthBo4kYVY

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nbch_TQEA0

Perhaps the only positive that might come from this type of thinking is an eventual revolt that will crush characters like ellison and provide strong real laws that protect us from this garbage in the future.

There is a point when even money can't save you.

Right now, I'm tentatively less concerned about them watching us. They haven't militarized the state this way yet & we'd need to slide a lot more for the boot stomping the face of mankind to get away with such total cooption of technology against thought-rights. Even if it is merely total corporate (not governmental) coersion/corruption against the population, I'm still not afraid of this bluster & abuse being gestured at the citizenry.

What does scare me is communication moving the other direction, not the bottom being read by the top but from the top being broadcast down. This scares me very very much.

Because Ellison's already control: CBS, Paramount, Tik-Tok

And might control: WB, Discovery (including HBO, CNN).

Larry's threat against democracy & the sanctity of human thought is serious stuff & perhaps things might escalate to where this becomes a real hazard. But the hazard today is that the Powell Memorandum (1971) is way underway and that the explicit plan all along has been for wealthy interests to use a political party as a vehicle to takeover and control the information that people get, to shape the media digest as the ultra-wealthy please.

The Internet has thrown somewhat of a wrench into this plan. But when more solid targets like Media Matters begin to form, it feels like the lawsuit-o-rama, of for example Musk filing existentially thermonuclear lawsuits in the US, Singapore, and Ireland, in an attempt to brutally over-the-top nuke the site from orbit (for daring to show the world the insane antisemitic and conspiracy nonsense he personally advocated engaged with and promoted, as well as for showing Nazi and very closely related content next to paid advertisements). Not just Felony Contempt of Business Model, Capital Contempt for showing what we did.

(Of course there's like none of the loud free speech advocates around, duly angry about this one.)

I am super afraid of Ellison's relationship with society, of what his incredible force of wealth gets bent to. But right now AI is far down my list, versus what's already here now, what the wealthy do to suppress other views, and when they deny the world their own chance to speak the truth & strive towards a just equitable & good planet. Ellison's media empire will one way or another be a first line player for decades. Overall Ellison's media companies seem not so far so pernicious, but it's so hard to guess whether lack of media coverage for large protests going unreported for example is reasoned choice or whether it is active suppression; it feels like already what doesn't get covered and who doesn't get airtime leaves the cutout shape of a hopeful progressive agenda behind.

Whether you agree with me politically or not, i sure hope we can agree that having very few people in charge of the media is a bad end. And imo it's more than a clear and present danger to our democracy, it's already deeply deeply underway.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think what needs to be monitored is anonymous communications in social media, gaming chats, and similar locations.

People are committing horrible, unprecedented acts of violence with political undertones. They are being goaded and encouraged by hoards of anonymous entities that may or may not be real humans. The backers may or may not be citizens of the affected locality.

I’m in favor of free speech, but it should not apply to bot armies or subversives.

Ironically, I won’t be surprised if this post is downvoted.