> It can be safely omitted in favor of actual arguments.
Fair point, I could have dropped that sentence. I stand by my gross mischaracterization statement, though. Programmatic surveillance is very different from a stranger looking at someone.
> Sure. It's called a relationship. Or a memory.
The profile built up on people by ad brokers and spy agencies is a relationship? I don't think that's how most people would describe it.
> You can safely replace "this information" with virtually anything useful and get the same effect. Do you feel the same about, say, nuclear weapons? Or legal authority to lock people in cages?
Uh, a core part of the problem is this information being coupled with the ability to lock people in cages (or exert power in other ways). Obviously the data by itself is inert and useless. It's what people might do with it that matters.
Important examples would be restrictions on free speech and suppression of dissent. Imagine something like a credit score 2.0, created by analyzing a lifetime of private communication, online activity, and transactional data.
Those websites you visited 12 years ago? It's gonna cost you on your next car loan. And don't even think of running for city council -- the dirt will really come out then. Etc etc.
Obviously, technology brings a lot of great benefits. I'm all for that. I think we should just be aware of new pitfalls it brings as well, and try to account for them.
>The profile built up on people by ad brokers and spy agencies is a relationship? I don't think that's how most people would describe it.
Most people use language woefully imprecisely. The relationship I have with the barista at the cafe near my office isn't the same as the relationship I have with my sister but it is a relationship of the kind that's relevant here. Knowing what I order and when, recognizing me, etc.
>Uh, a core part of the problem is this information being coupled with the ability to lock people in cages (or exert power in other ways). Obviously the data by itself is inert and useless. It's what people might do with it that matters.
A nice thought, but in practice, when we try to fragment this power by privatizing police, prisons, military, firefighting, etc, all of which have many modern examples, things do not turn out well. As unreasonable as it may sound, the evidence suggests it's better to put all the eggs into one poorly run basket.
>Imagine something like a credit score 2.0, created by analyzing a lifetime of private communication, online activity, and transactional data....
> Most people use language woefully imprecisely. The relationship I have with the barista at the cafe near my office isn't the same as the relationship I have with my sister but it is a relationship of the kind that's relevant here. Knowing what I order and when, recognizing me, etc.
Yes but that is a very different type of relationship with quite different characteristics. I hope it isn't too difficult to infer I'm arguing not everyone wants these types of relationships. To call it "just another relationship" is not very helpful for the discussion.
This type of relationship may have significant extended and unforseen side effects. It's not well constrained and the preserved artifacts could easily be hijacked for countless unknown purposes decades in the future. It's a fundamentally new paradigm that we don't fully understand yet, and given humanity's historical tendency to abuse new mechanisms of power as they become available, I think some caution is very reasonable.
Perhaps to make my position a little more clear, a key point on why detailed data profiles could be quite dangerous is their scalable and programmatic nature. Never before could a single click of a button identify every individual who has been discussing topic X in the last year, or spit out a list of everyone with 2 degrees of connection to some targeted individual. The same unlimited possibilities that make this stuff exciting to technologists are also why it may be quite dangerous.
These powers are unprecedented. You would need a rotating team of investigators inside every home and every place of business in order to gather this data in previous eras, not to mention even trying to collate and process it. It's equivalent to someone in previous eras standing over your shoulder and writing down every newspaper article you read, taking notes on every conversation you have, etc. Because it is invisible, it doesn't feel this way, but that is what's happening.
> when we try to fragment this power by privatizing police, prisons, military, firefighting, etc, all of which have many modern examples, things do not turn out well
Fair point, I could have dropped that sentence. I stand by my gross mischaracterization statement, though. Programmatic surveillance is very different from a stranger looking at someone.
> Sure. It's called a relationship. Or a memory.
The profile built up on people by ad brokers and spy agencies is a relationship? I don't think that's how most people would describe it.
> You can safely replace "this information" with virtually anything useful and get the same effect. Do you feel the same about, say, nuclear weapons? Or legal authority to lock people in cages?
Uh, a core part of the problem is this information being coupled with the ability to lock people in cages (or exert power in other ways). Obviously the data by itself is inert and useless. It's what people might do with it that matters.
Important examples would be restrictions on free speech and suppression of dissent. Imagine something like a credit score 2.0, created by analyzing a lifetime of private communication, online activity, and transactional data.
Those websites you visited 12 years ago? It's gonna cost you on your next car loan. And don't even think of running for city council -- the dirt will really come out then. Etc etc.
Obviously, technology brings a lot of great benefits. I'm all for that. I think we should just be aware of new pitfalls it brings as well, and try to account for them.