Signal's Meredith Whittaker: AI is fundamentally 'a surveillance technology' | TechCrunch

AI scientists cannot help this or themselves. Like all technologists, they put blind faith and total effort into achievement, damn the consequences. The excuse is that if I don't someone else will (and gain from it whether money, fame, etc.) so why not me?

But the internet is not the only-good/never-bad achievement these presumed in the 90's. Always... See more

Some might say that it’s not the job of A.I. to oppose capitalism. That may be true, but it’s not the job of A.I. to strengthen capitalism, either. Yet that is what it currently does. If we cannot come up with ways for A.I. to reduce the concentration of wealth, then I’d say it’s hard to argue that A.I. is a neutral technology, let alone a benefici

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The tendency to think of A.I. as a magical problem solver is indicative of a desire to avoid the hard work that building a better world requires. That hard work will involve things like addressing wealth inequality and taming capitalism. For technologists, the hardest work of all—the task that they most want to avoid—will be questioning the assumpt

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Just as factory owners of the 19th century dismissed the skills of their workers in favor of profit and productivity, so do the tech leaders of today dismiss human craft in favor of what they believe is “good enough” productivity. It’s telling that in the development of AI, tech companies often use the term “ median human ” to describe the aspirati... See more