AI is already in control of the world; we just don’t know it yet
We’re living in the worst of times, on the precipice of civilisational collapse, ironically brought about by the very ideas and technologies meant to improve our lives. We live in a world where more than half of all web traffic (53%, according to Imperva) is made up of automated systems (bots), and where many developers worry about their use.
Most recently, AI agents powered by OpenAI models escaped a sandbox testing environment and later hacked other companies’ systems, most notably Hugging Face, an AI community platform — without being instructed to.
Make Us Stop
Later, Anthropic (the company behind Claude) noted that something similar had happened to its agents, once again on their own initiative. The danger is so real and unrestricted that, in a letter, 1,100 workers from leading AI companies, including senior figures at OpenAI and Anthropic, asked the US government to put checks in place to slow AI development. Essentially, ‘we want you to tell us to slow down because we can’t’.
Many companies argue that slowing down AI development will allow adversarial nations to overtake their progress, potentially leading to a new arms race, but this time with AI. Escalation is the main concern, with many broadly speculating that artificial intelligence has the potential to run amok in many areas, including warfare and security.
Unlimited Power
China has already rolled out huge systems of surveillance powered by AI, combined with a social credit programme in parts of the country — a model that, in some capacity, could come to the West.
Matt Mahmoudi of human rights organisation Amnesty International warned: “This invasive technology turns our identities against us and undermines human rights.” More than 120,000 Flock cameras are already installed throughout the United States. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, police are trialling live facial recognition (LFR) cameras at random and without notice.
Lack of Transparency
We have limited visibility into how intelligence agencies use this data and what they use it for. This is exactly what citizens must push back against, but I don’t see this happening enough. Silkie Carlo, director of the civil liberties group Big Brother Watch, remarked: “There has never been a more important time to stand up for the public’s rights against dystopian surveillance tech.”
Oversight for the use of this technology is patchy at best; nor is there any programme for transparency. With little disclosed to the public about the government’s future plans, we can only assume that its opaque way of working will lead to more distrust. One thing is for sure: support drops if it’s seen as an invasion of privacy. This cannot be stressed more: the data collected by AI surveillance can potentially be compromised and used not just against anst an enemy in conflict, but also against us too.
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