Technology

glances at white house

might wana start with that... 👀

Thinks it can ~~eliminate all crime in America~~ make a shit load of money

This is just an ad for obvious bullshit. Forbes may as well be running articles about how ozempic is done because of this one weird trick a local veteran discovered.

So they're gunna use AI to find ways to better fund public education and harm reduction programs to keep people out of prisons while eliminating the pretext for hyper-militarized policing forces? Right?

...Right?

They’re going to build a society in which all basic needs such as access to food, water, education, housing, and health care are provided to all people making the need for most crime unnecessary???

Oh look, it's the main villain in a Cyberpunk novel.

I'll believe it when they catch a McDonald's manager shorting his employees' wages.

there's a lot of mid-century French theorists spinning in their graves right now

This company has illegally installed their cameras in more than one town, then tried to sell the local police force on them.

They have lawyers on staff that they use to coach local politicians on how to hold the votes to establish contracts with them in ways that aren't technically illegal, but ensure that no community opposition has a way to have their voices heard.

You can find a lot of these sprts of stories by searching online. In local subreddits, ones dedicated to talking about flock, and local news.

Benn Jordan has a good 40 minute video giving an overview of these systems, how they work, what they track, and why they are a problem. He highlights some cases where families were held at gunpoint by police due to failures of these systems. He also experiments with defeating the AI that reads plates.

Louis Rossman is currently leading a campaign against their installation where he lives in Austin, Texas right now. Has a number of videos on it.

Overview before the Austin City Council vote: https://youtu.be/4RM09nKczVs

Call for people to show up at the Austin City Council session to discuss the potential contract with Flock, and showing how difficult it is to find this sort of stuff and be involved with your local government: https://youtu.be/g4vL1ERdZ9Y

Call to action 2: https://youtu.be/hDOmYqlwxD4

Austin City Council reschedules the vote (in a questionably illegal fashion) with less than 24 hours notice when they realize they kicked the hornet's nest: https://youtu.be/iscDYp6dtl8

Minor followup during the wait for the revised time, at two of the three parks with 90% of reported car break ins these cameras are meant to deter: https://youtu.be/2QbtDWrlPpc

Before we try to manage the entire population at large, let's just eliminate crime in prisons and jails. That's a controlled environment, but it's rife with crime. If we can't fix a controlled environment, how can we possibly fix an open environment?

Before reading anything else, I'm going all in on this only mentioning violent or public crimes and ignoring financial or corporate crimes

Americans when you talk about gun control: NOOO mah freedom, I need it to protect myself from the government.

Americans when you tell them a private company is going to monitor and track every citizen, basically making a dystopian police state: I have nothing to hide so it's fine.

I feel Europe is basically the other way around, less guns, but more privacy.

Does that include the content theft used to train the AI models?

I want to see the camera that will stop white-collar crime.

Are they going to place cameras in the white house? Because that would be a start.

Haven't there been countless sci-fi movies and novels warning us about the many ways this approach can go horribly wrong?

The only way you could actually come close to eliminating all crime would be if you eliminated poverty. But that would make the rich less rich, so not gonna happen.

Just leaving this here in case anyone needs it

If you think you want to live in a place where all crime has been eliminated, you are just wrong. You do not want to live in such a place.

No they don't.

They think saying they do will make them rich.

Is this ~~damage control~~ propaganda after the popular Benn Jordan video?

Chinese drones, hardware, software will make America great again👍

Make trains run by the clock, eh?

He acknowledges that programs to boost youth employment and cut recidivism will help.

Even better. State programs of giving people bullshit jobs earning their gratitude, loyalty and readiness to join, say, some paramilitary force?

He’s convinced that America can and should be a place where everyone feels safe. And once it’s draped in a vast net of U.S.-made Flock surveillance tech, it will be.

A knife can be used both for cutting bread and for cutting off heads. And they are.

A gun can be used both for stopping a very bad person and for stopping a very good person. And they are.

And a surveillance net of drones (that can also carry weapons) can be used both for reducing crime and reducing dissent. And it will be.

There are moments when I'm glad I live in a backwards (relatively to the US) country.

uk has cameras on every street corner and there's still crime.

why wait. pre-crime

How to stop crime in America in one easy step: lose all laws. Runnerup solution: hold wealthy accountable to existing laws and remove loopholes for the elite, allowing wealth inequality to balance and improve access to education and basic human needs. One to me seems more practical, but I'd bet that many see both as equally horrible solutions.

Yeah, I've seen this movie already: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11542920/

🎶 It's beginning to look a lot like a dystopia

Everywhere you go

There's drones flying around

Recording all the sounds

And reporting on your every move

You know what prevents crime? Better standard of living and overall living conditions. But sure let’s go robocop surveillance state instead. Can’t mess with the profits.

This feels like fanfiction where one of the hardy boys goes to the extreme to solve crimes by creating a dystopian future.