HOME SECRETARY OF ENGLAND WANTS AN AI PANOPTICON SURVEILLANCE STATE
Politics in the United States are pretty dreary right now in terms of active authoritarianism as delivered by President Trump’s official police goon squad. And the dichotomy separating what everyone can see and what White House officials say is instead true couldn’t be further apart. And, yes, said official police goon squad is collecting data on peaceful protestors to create a dossier of “domestic terrorists.” So I guess it’s a damn good thing we don’t have a near or total surveillance state. Yet. And yet then I hear from across the Pond that the Home Secretary in England wants just that: AI running total surveillance on everyone in a fully realized panopticon state.
EVEN SCARIER? THE HOME SECRETARY IS ON THE RECORD LAUDING A TOTAL PANOPTICON
Britain’s Home Secretary is Shabana Mahmood. And saying she wants a virtual Panopticon isn’t me throwing accusatory stones. She literally said it herself with, “When I was in justice, my ultimate vision for that part of the criminal justice system was to achieve, by means of AI and technology, what Jeremy Bentham tried to do with his Panopticon. That is that the eyes of the state can be on you at all times. Similarly, in the world of policing, in particular, we’ve already been rolling out live facial recognition technology, but I think there’s big space here for being able to harness the power of AI and tech to get ahead of the criminals, frankly, which is what we’re trying to do.”
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JUST THINK WHAT A DONLAD TRUMP WOULD DO CONTROLLING A TOTAL PANOPTICON
Sorry for you guys over there in England! Because while we Americans probably have parties interested in the same, they’re not actually saying it out loud (again, yet). But predicting criminal behavior? Didn’t Tom Cruise make a movie about the pitfalls with that idea? And then there’s the definition of crime, or criminal. Donald Trump and all his lackeys are literally saying peaceful protest in the way of following and filming ICE agents makes them domestic terrorists. And, oh, let’s not forget that if you are carrying a licensed firearm and are anywhere near an ICE agent, they can shoot you dead.
Sorry, England. I really hope you don’t go down the AI Panopticon road. Besides being an awful, terrible, soulless idea, you won’t know who could wield that power over you in the years to come.
