In his interesting opinion article (Robots sacked, screenings shut down: a new movement of luddites is rising up against AI, 27 July), Ed Newton-Rex misses one of the most serious concerns about artificial intelligence: its surveillance potential. Governments have always spied on their subjects/citizens: technology multiplies their powers of spying.
In his novel 1984, George Orwell had the authorities install a two-way telescreen system in every party member’s home, and in all workplaces and public spaces. This allowed Big Brother to monitor individuals’ actions and conversations, while he himself remained invisible.
Today’s digital control systems operating through electronic tracking devices and voice and facial recognition systems are simply Big Brother’s control devices brought up to date. They empower commercial platforms and intelligence services alike to “mine” and “scrape” the information about our thoughts and habits, which we ourselves provide. This enables them to predict and thus control our behaviour.
No one has yet suggested an effective method of protecting privacy against the enhanced power of state intrusion.
Unless this is done, politics will wither and die, because a well-functioning public sphere presupposes the existence of a protected private sphere, in which people can pause and take thought without fear of arrest or detention.
Robert Skidelsky
House of Lords
Robert Skidelsky 