The Digital Leviathan

AI makes this all go exponential.

We've had for a few years now almost universal video surveillance of all public spaces, but pre-AI it's just not realistic to monitor or search it all. Well, it is now. Video just being one example of the surveillance data firehouse that will become legible to the state -- or anyone else that can centralize their access to it all.

I think this will end up being actually the most impactful element of AI on society, and it's not going to be great.

For all of the article's brown-nosing, there doesn't seem anything particularly groundbreaking about this thesis: the internet was once thought of as a mechanism for the unvarnished spread of information and is now utilized by those with power and influence as a mechanic for careful information control. Am I missing something?

Hilariously, the article manages to have a right-wing bent to this revelation, as though it's those insidious liberals buying up the world's information streams and intentionally breaking them.

Okay, buddy.

weird they start about McCarthy since he was absolutely right