Tuesday, July 26: The Downside of AI
Artificial Intelligence, not Allen Iverson who obviously has no downsides
In April 2021, the Israeli Finance Ministry announced a new contract with Google to advance Israeli artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities, “Project Nimbus”. The scope of these new technologies wasn’t clearly defined, but the tools would be tested and refined on Palestinians, and they would encompass practically every mode of surveillance imaginable. As recently reported in The Intercept, Project Nimbus “would give Israel capabilities for facial detection, automated image categorization, object tracking, and even sentiment analysis that claims to assess the emotional content of pictures, speech, and writing”. In short, the existing occupation would become a true open-air jail, turning every Palestinian into a test subject for these emerging surveillance tools.
“…their main goal, which is to create the panopticon feeling among Palestinians that we are being watched all the time, which would make the Palestinian population control easier.”
Mona Shtaya, Palestinian digital rights advocate at 7amleh-The Arab Center for Social Media Advancement
If you’re gullible enough to believe that the use of these oppressive surveillance technologies will be limited to Israel, I envy your simple-mindedness and also have a beautiful beachfront property in Kansas I’d be willing to sell you. Sadly, U.S. Customs and Border Protection authorities have been utilizing some of the same tools in their network of border surveillance towers since 2020. On the bright side, with all this surveillance at least we’ll be able to actively monitor our continued societal descent into chaos and destruction.
Side Items
Russia has decided to opt out of the International Space Station after 2024, choosing instead to focus their efforts on building an orbiting station of their own. So much for international cooperation and understanding
In this book review, the question of how to address climate change and how to escape our current fossil fuel-dependency is simplified into two options; fatalism or sabotage. The author recommends the latter