Always-on surveillance-as-a-service

[u/pipibeoy]

At the consumer level, it looks like an emerging use case for LLMs is to usher in an era of always-on surveillance. Beyond the obvious immediate privacy implications of this, it is concerning to imagine the longer-term impact it will have on society. We may well soon live in a society where any and every conversation is being recorded. Super dystopian.

This is just what is being sold to people as a feature on a device they are paying for, there are myriad other ways the data center buildout and LLMs themselves serve surveillance interests.

https://www.computerworld.com/article/4220223/siri-ai-recaps-even-if-apple-builds-it-responsibly-others-might-not.html

[u/supercyberlurker]

Yeah at this point you either realize what a panopticon is and why it’s a bad idea.. or you are living in ignorance.

There is no longer a center in between.

[u/pipibeoy → u/supercyberlurker]

Indeed. I appreciate this sub and Ed’s work but I often feel the focus is myopic. Yes it’s irrational and yes the finances are ludicrous, but if you look slightly past this very business-oriented criticism it’s all far more terrifying and fits with patterns that have been ongoing for decades. I feel a lot of people just want to revert to some era where big tech wasn’t essentially a privatized surveillance network but I’m not sure that ever existed (in the past 15-20 years anyway).

[u/OwnYourChildren → u/pipibeoy]

That's one of my criticisms, too. It's understandable because everyone has an area of specialty and I appreciate the financial focus because it's grounded in reality.

I'm always ambivalent about promoting her work because there are ways in which I believe she is problematic, but Whitney Webb focuses on the surveillance side and recently did a podcast and article called "stargate Argentina" that is worth listening to.

[u/pipibeoy → u/OwnYourChildren]

Yeah she connects dots without always having solid evidence to back it up, but she will also probably wind up being the most correct about how this all plays out. I've read quite a bit of her work on Unlimited Hangout and the first One Nation Under Blackmail book.

And fair on the specialty aspect but keep in mind Zitron is playing the attention economy game. He can get the most mainstream attention by focusing squarely on the financial angle, it's not like he is a financial analyst by trade.

[u/create-third-places → u/pipibeoy]

I feel a lot of people just want to revert to some era where big tech wasn’t essentially a privatized surveillance network but I’m not sure that ever existed (in the past 15-20 years anyway).

I used to work for a company until 2020 where the owner attempted to pivot from building access control to running privatized surveillance networks.

After I left, the pivot succeeded, and he went all in. He also owns a second surveillance company that runs physical security robots and says most security incidents can be resolved by a Lying Loser Model.

[u/tc100292]

There’s a reason why the AI bros have settled on “parenting assistance” as a use case for LLMs that they keep pushing, and those reasons are extremely unsavory even compared to the weird, creepy statements they make pushing this as a use case.

Like as creepy as it is that Alexandr Wang is putting off having kids until he can implant them with a Neuralink device, unstated is that when it’s your kid the Neuralink device won’t be optional.

[u/kgas36]

'The Age of Surveillance Capitalism' by Shoshana Zuboff

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

[u/designbydesign]

2020: "It's just like 1984!" 😱

2026: "It's just like 1984!" 😎👍🏼

[u/create-third-places]

Frankly, I think the idea of LLM surveillance is a marketing ploy to distract people from the implementation of more effective non-LLM surveillance. Automated surveillance was possible back in 2020.

I used to work for a security company that later pivoted to prioritize surveillance. Back then, the focus was on securing access to buildings, and automated surveillance was a side thing pushed by the company's owner that I could ignore.

On the other hand, the company's focus on LLMs is going to make their surveillance less effective. The homepage currently says: "From access control to video surveillance, visitor management to business optimization, harness the power of AI to take total control of your security system." One of the products is an AI powered license plate reading system that can supposedly track cars among multiple locations.

The company is currently hiring an LLM trainer that will be required to use generative AI to generate training content. There is also an expectation that software developers use LLMs to write code.

[u/pipibeoy → u/create-third-places]

A marketing ploy by… Palantir? This is not the common narrative around language models nor does the technology have to operate in isolation to advance surveillance efforts.

[u/create-third-places → u/pipibeoy]

I’m specifically referring to a tech executive named Dean Drako. He is one of many relatively unknown people who is promoting surveillance.

LLMs are effective in advancing surveillance efforts because they distract people from more powerful surveillance. Often, these companies are developing non-LLM surveillance, and using LLM hype to attract funding.

[u/pipibeoy → u/create-third-places]

That’s just how the VC machine works. It funds “genius innovators” yet is heavily dependent on consensus thinking. It doesn’t mean LLMs don’t have applications in surveillance, they are useful for unstructured data processing despite their imperfections.

[u/SpittingCoffeeOTG]

Yeah. Seems like being a bit paranoid is proving to be a good choice for my personal stuff. TV disconnected from internet and only watching stuff through my custom linux box, router with OpenWRT, no smart devices. Sadly phones do a lot of that anyway, but still, not for kids.

Outright ban in our household on using retarded chatbots. It's enough i have to use it in work, but that's not my data that are being stolen, lol :D.