4mo ago

Billionaire Larry Ellison says a vast AI-fueled surveillance system can ensure 'citizens will be on their best behavior' | Business Insider India

www.businessinsider.in Billionaire Larry Ellison says a vast AI-fueled surveillance system can ensure 'citizens will be on their best behavior' | Business Insider India

Billionaire Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison said he expects AI surveillance systems to reach a point where all citizens are under constant watch.

134 comments

And I guarantee that billionaire Larry Ellison blithely believes that he'll be exempt - that all of this surveillance will just be used against the little people. And he's almost certainly right.
- He will be exempt. The areas that he lives in and the things that he does will not be tagged as "criminal" on the data system that he has the contract to administer.
  That's always how these systems work. You don't worry about getting dragged into the Saudi Consulate and bonesawed to death by intelligence officers when you're MBS, because you're the boss and the guy getting bonesawed is your employee.
  For the same reason, you don't worry about getting spied on when you're the one who owns and operates the big surveillance infrastructure because it exists for your benefit.
  
  Just look at Musk to see someone whose wealth entirely excuses his behavior. It ain’t hypothetical in the slightest.

Owner of Cloud company that sells AI services tells governments that AI-powered surveillance is good.
- governments and surveillance, name a more iconic pair
  
  Corporations and surveillance?

We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. - Ursula K Le Guin
- This is the way.
  
  Pass it on...

He’s voicing what every billionaire and government official already thinks. Call me pessimist but I believe it’s unavoidable. VPNs are seen as “tools to overcome government bans to access illegal websites” in so many countries, hence getting banned. Access to mainstream websites also getting harder and harder when on VPN. People hosting Tor exit nodes are living in fear of police raids.
Even with some little amount of privacy protecting measures, websites start to act strangely or do not work, and the amount of websites like this increases every day. As protecting our privacy becomes a bigger and bigger effort, more people will give up, strengthening the arguments against it. Eventually we’ll hit big brother levels.
- Eventually we’ll hit big brother levels.
  As someone who was born before the age of surveillance capitalism, I can tell you we've hit that level a long time ago. Anybody who thinks society has been running normally for at least the past 15 years is too young to have known what a normal society is.
  
  Exactly. I am elder millennial, and I grew up in Dubai. Back in the 80s and 90s in Dubai the only security cameras that existed were in malls and some supermarkets, and public CCTV by police did not exist. Traffic light cameras to catch people speeding and/or running a red light only got started in the early 2000s. This is one thing that I honestly say that really demarcates the early 2000s from previous times is the fact that the possibility of mass surveillance became a reality only back then. Before that surveillance was mostly disjointed and not at all interconnected. If you had security cameras, then they were on VHS tapes and unless you had the budget to get new tapes regularly, most people would just rewind the tapes and tape over and over, meaning they will degrade fairly quickly, and since most places didn't keep an archive for too long, if something 'suspicious' happened a few weeks prior that you weren't informed about until today, it would be lost since those tapes were likely overwritten, and there is no way to recover that.
  The 90s were far from perfect for me. I had a fairly hard time growing up. But I honestly just wish for the dignity of not being on camera 24/7. My apartment building has cameras on all floors and I cannot exit or enter my own apartment without being caught on camera. That is if those cameras are real and not fakes.
- I2P could be a solid option over TOR then, no?
  
  The problem with it being it not working on the clear net. However, this may also be seen as a benefit.

Maybe billionaires should be filmed and streamed continuously, since their behavior has such a big impact on the world. If they don't like it maybe we shouldn't allow them to control such incredible assets. I'm sure billionaires have nothing sketchy to hide, right? What we will see is probably how they are hard working people who are not at all detached from normal folks. Right?
- Wrong think detected, proper authority has been notified.
  Resitence iis futile.

Fuck you Larry.

By "citizens" he means poor people, naturally, and by "best behaviour" he means obedience to authority.
- And by authority he means himself.

The first XKCD that comes to mind
Ellision sounds like the kind of guy that wants an unstoppable army of robot swarms.
Representative Jamie Raskin recently brought up the term neo-monarchy.

“Citizens” 🙄 Not every person is a citizen; I’ve got a pet peeve about this.
- Robocop... the movie they love but don't realize is a complete mockery of THEM. As a kid I thought that Robo was just cool, but as I got older and rewatched it a few times, I realized just how deep the rabbit hole goes.
  You know what's one profound thing I noticed a few years ago that flew over my head? The ED-209 robot does not have a non-lethal apprehension method. It only threatens to kill for non-compliance, and then does so if compliance is not absolute. It has no way of restraining or leading arrested suspects if they comply, and no other method to deal with non-compliant suspects other than to blow them away. No tasers, no net gun, no ropes, no tear gas, no sci-fi 'set for stun' laser beam, nothing.
  On top of that another thing I realized is that Dick Jones considered that thing to be street ready to take on law enforcement. From everything to ultra-violent encounters to jaywalking and parking tickets. What it tells me about his mentality is that he would be a HIGHLY successful billionaire today...
- Does that mean undocumented folks are exempt?
  If yes, how can I become undocumented?

So the Panopticon. The hypothetical prison that even people in the 1800s thought would be a human rights violation to build because it was such an extreme form of psychological torture.
- Well, we already experience that psychological torture. After 2002/2003, and then especially after 2012, this concept has already burdened our everyday behavior. Browsing behavior, phone calls, texts, emails…every single way we communicate, even face to face meetings with phones in our pockets are open to surveillance. And it’s been shown that it’s been used. Over a decade ago, thanks to Snowden. Now? Things have surely gotten worse and I would bet the farm on behavior very much having changed due these facts.
  
  And not for the better. I think people are actually much less kind to each other when they are aware of being observed. Or worse, deliberately performing for content.
- When envisioning the rising of such surveillance system turning our prison into a planet, I had always hoped that the "hackers" in the world would protect us from such.

I have been hating this man's guts since the mid 90's and somehow it never lets off. Most hateful people manage to become a little bit more likeable as they age. Even this disgusting piece of human refuse Bill Gates might pass for a somewhat okay human being if you wilfully overlook why he truly does philanthropy.
But Larry Ellison? Hell no. He never changes. he's just consistently the worst year after year, decade after decade.
- Yeah. He is pretty horrible. What surprised me though is his daughter's film company has a pretty solid track record on quality movies and tv series:
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annapurna_Pictures
  But yeah, Larry Elison sucks...
  
  Pretty good track record with videogames too.
- why does he truly do philanthropy?
  
  To evade taxes of course.
  Have you ever asked yourself how it's possible that ALL the fucking ultra-rich almost without exception do philanthropy?
  It doesn't make sense: most of those millionaires and billionaires are psychopaths who essentially don't give a shit about their fellow man, acquired their wealth by exploiting and shafting others for the most part, and don't give a shit about how that makes them look: why on Earth would any of them do philanthropy, let alone all of them?
  It only starts to make sense when you understand philanthropy is yet another tax loophole.

This dude can shove that stupid boat up his ass
- Hear hear!

Lmg, he'll be exempt from this surveillance along with all his rich ass-hole buddies
- Subjugating the working class majority is literally the whole point of establishing a dictatorship of the bourgeoisie.
  
  Didn't the French have a solution to this problem? Something about heads, or a lack there of.

billionaires who talk like this should immediately be committed. he's clearly far gone, just fucking take him away.

My best behavior is to be on Larry Ellison's front yard with pitchforks burning torches and guillotines.

But they're will be no cameras in his torture dungeon, of course.

what he really means is he can make a ton of money out of it
- What he really means is the rich can prevent uprisings against them before they have a chance to start.
  
  It's both! His slaves create the system, then sell it to the government, who is bribed to ensure it gets used.

I aim to misbehave
- Love me a good Firefly reference.
- That went well.

Dude is crying for a guillotine. Someone tell this asshole movies aren't real life events. lmao

"[Stupid rich person shit]"
--Larry Ellison, soon to be major shareholder of Paramount

Private jets . They’ve all got multiple front yards & none of us can afford pitchforks But small aeroplanes, those are weak. & these parasites just looove em

Thank you all for these comments, they have made another horrible piece of news a bit less horrible (by knowing people are apaled by this shit).

And a fueled bottle can keep billionaires in check.

Who defines what best behavior is?
- Well, Larry obviously.
  Coincidentally, Larry will not be under surveillance.
  
  Not only that, he will probably set all the cameras that he is in control of to switch off on command or if he is in the vicinity (in addition to purging the previous 10 minutes or so) so that he is NEVER caught on any camera, period.
- Bending over, touching your toes, and not complaining when this guy comes out from hiding in the bushes and sticks something up ur but

Ay they took capitalism so far it wrapped around into orwellian territory.
- 1984 was written in 1948, after fascists had already demonstrated that capitalism is quite compatible with totalitarianism.
- What? This is exactly what Orwell wrote about
  
  I thought all the ministries in 1984 were big govt, not big corp, but maybe im splitting hairs 🙆‍♀️

in bad country the ruling class uses AI scoring system to ensure the compliance of the workers
- So glad we live in good country where the ruling class are benevolent and would never do that to us.
  
  I'm missing emoji reactions (not replies), jeje

Those are not citizens. This is not a democracy.
- You need to pretend you live in a democracy or the administrators will take away the illusion.
  
  You really can't overstate this plain truth, and people will still cling to the illusion of freedom.

"We're going to have supervision," Ellison said. "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 because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that's going on."
And if we entertained the idea that this was true and the core focus of this idea (it's not) what do we think the chances are that the "appropriate person" will be one of two things:
Another cop
A subscription service digital surveillance company with that cop as a client that they report back to for "internal investigation", as long as the bill is paid.
- Even if his vision for the future worked perfectly (which it won't) and wasn't abused (which it will be, rampantly and immediately), it's still a complete dystopian nightmare lol
- Like the police unions will ever permit the policing of the police 🤣🤣🤣

Was he on that island discussing whether the billionaires could keep their security detail loyal with shock collars?
Ellison is the world's sixth-richest man with a net worth of $157 billion, according to Bloomberg.
They are really concerned when people tire of their children dying from hunger and easily treatable diseases, we'll be coming for them. But rather than give up an iota of the money generations can never spend for our ecology and things people need to live, they resort to things like shock collars and surveillance states.

Larry "privacy is dead, get over it" Ellison.

In other words, lack of accountability leads to bad behaviour. He might be onto something there…

Ok, let’s do a test run on you

#TaxTheRich

Wow, that is one punchable face right there!!!

And who will decide what is good and bad behaviour? Hmm? And what advantage will society as a whole get from this?

billionaires and their super important opinions eh? having money is a personality trait apparently

Did AI trim that beard for him?

1984

"Will it blend?" - in today's episode, Larry Ellison, massive waste of skin and resources.

Emboldened oligarch in a plutocracy.
But also kleptocracy and really a kakistocracy disguised outwardly as an aristocracy or neo-monarchy as Raskin said.
Outside of just saying "America" or "Capitalism" How do we combine all of this into one satisfying, effective term?
- I think that word is tyranny, if we’re sticking with Greek.

He looks like a perfectly roasted turkey 🦃 🍗 …

What behaviors of Larry Ellison is it going to help change? Hoarding wealth to the detriment of society? Attacking the tech sector with their army of lawyers? AI monitoring billionaires sounds strange, but I'm willing to see how it goes.
- If History is anything to go by, poor people threatening the rich.

Ah, cofounder of Oracle (that terrible software you hate using) if you, like me, were wondering who the fuck this cunt is.
Eat my shit Larry.

Only the fact that he is able to say shit like that out loud is a sign of a rotting society. People are ok with being their slaves

“People behave themselves in a panopticon”-rich people
Firstly no, people don’t. Second, they go crazy in one. And third, this basically breaks down the threads of both community and individualism to create a miserable nightmare
- Breaking community and individualism is kinda a big thing billionaires want because that way people can't organise to rise up against them.

People can rise up at any time and start destroying the machines that guard them.
It's not bad enough yet but at some point, people won't accept it anymore. Probably when they have almost nothing left to fight for.

Put yourself on public camera streams first as a test. I bet this guy is not always on his best behavior

sounds like a nazi

Is this what Ted Kaczyinski (the Unabomber) warned against?
- That and global warming

Psycho Pass anyone?

This guy's company is planning to build nuclear-powered datacenters btw. Check in with yourself on whether you think that's a good power this responsible human being should have.

134 comments