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The following is a guest post by Yannik Schrade, CEO and Co-founder of Arcium. When Oracle AI CTO Larry Ellison shared his vision for a global network of AI-powered surveillance that would keep citizens on their “best behavior”, critics were quick to draw comparisons to George Orwell’s 1984 and describe his business pitch as dystopian. Mass surveillance is a breach of privacy, has negative psychological effects, and intimidates people from engaging in protests.  But what is most disturbing about Ellison’s vision for the future is that AI-powered mass surveillance is already a reality. During the Summer Olympics this year, the French government contracted out four tech companies – Videtics, Orange Business, ChapsVision and Wintics – to conduct video surveillance across Paris, using AI-powered analytics to monitor behavior and alert security.  The Growing Reality of AI-Powered Mass Surveillance This controversial policy was made possible by legislation passed in 2023 permitting newly developed AI software to analyze data on the public. While France is the first country in the European Union to legalize AI-powered surveillance, video analytics is nothing new. The UK government first installed CCTV in cities during the 1960s, and as of 2022, 78 out of 179 OECD countries were using AI for public facial recognition systems. The demand for this technology is only expected to grow as AI advances and enables more accurate and larger-scale information services. Historically, governments have leveraged technological advancements to upgrade mass surveillance systems, oftentimes contracting out private companies to do the dirty work for them. In the case of the Paris Olympics, tech companies were empowered to test out their AI training models at a large-scale public event, gaining access to information on the location and behavior of millions of individuals attending the games and going about their day to day life in the…

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Filed under: News - @ October 26, 2024 1:24 pm