“Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.”
Say Cheese!
If it were up to Larry Ellison, the exorbitantly rich cofounder of software outfit Oracle, all of us will soon be smiling for the camera — constantly. Not for a cheery photograph, but to appease our super-invasive, if not totally omnipresent, algorithmic overseers.
As Business Insider reports, the tech centibillionaire glibly predicts that the wonders of AI will bring about a new paradigm of supercharged surveillance, guaranteeing that the proles — excuse us, “citizens” — all behave and stay in line.
“We’re going to have supervision,” Ellison said this week at an Oracle financial analysts meeting, per BI. “Every police officer is going to be supervised at all times, and if there’s a problem, AI will report that problem and report it to the appropriate person.”
“Citizens will be on their best behavior,” he added, “because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.”
Cop Out
Of course, many of these surveillance apparatuses — security cameras, bodycams — are already in place. The novel dystopian development would be that AIs would be deployed to monitor these feeds constantly — which already happens to some extent in experimental forms, but not as pervasively as Ellison envisions — so those poor, outnumbered Feds at intelligence agencies everywhere have a little backup.
Hell, it might even give patrol cops a run for their money, according to Ellison. Why have them engage in a risky car chase, for example, when you can get an AI drone to tail a suspect instead?
“You just have a drone follow the car,” Ellison said, per BI. “It’s very simple in the age of autonomous drones.”
Ivory Power
This is all very rich coming from a guy who’s, well, very rich. Depending on whose estimate you go by, Ellison’s net worth is north of $200 billion, making him the second wealthiest person in the world behind Elon Musk (another tech bigwig who, it’s worth mentioning, is currently profiting off government surveillance).
Under Ellison’s stewardship, Oracle has been attempting to position itself as another leader in the AI race, and has quickly integrated the tech into its cloud computing services.
It’s not a stretch to say that the Austin-based corporation will want to be part of that royal “we” Ellison is so fond of using that will oversee the “citizens.” Here’s something worth noting, though: in 2022, Oracle was sued for running a “worldwide surveillance machine” which was facilitated by allegedly collecting billions of people’s personal information and pawning it off to third parties.
It settled the case in July, agreeing to pay $115 million. Make of that what you will.
More on AI surveillance: Project 2025’s AI Policies Are a Baffling Stew of Grievance and Contradictions
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