Tech giant Oracle’s CEO Larry Ellison believes in a future where artificial intelligence becomes an integral part of a borderless mass surveillance society where privacy no longer exists and where everything citizens do is mapped and recorded.
Oracle and Larry Ellison will play a key role in Trump’s AI venture “Stargate” – expected to cost upwards of $500 billion and described by the President himself as “by far the largest AI infrastructure project in history”.
There is no doubt that Ellison is one of the world’s most successful tech moguls – just last fall he overtook Amazon founder Jeff Bezos to become the world’s second richest man after Elon Musk. But how does he see the future of artificial intelligence and how it will affect our lives?
During a meeting with financial analysts last fall, he predicted a future that critics say is reminiscent of dark dystopian novels like George Orwell’s 1984, where humans are subject to constant mass surveillance and AI is used to map citizens’ every move.
According to Ellison, it is highly likely that in the future, AI models will be used to analyze in real time all the material not only from surveillance cameras, police body cameras, but also from car cameras and doorbells.
– Citizens will be on their best behavior because we are constantly recording and reporting everything that’s going on.
– Every police officer is going to be supervised at all times, and if there’s a problem, AI will report the problem and report it to the appropriate person, he continued.
“Big brother is watching you”
The multi-billionaire also believes that AI-controlled drones will replace real police officers during car chases and other types of crime and disorder.
– If something happens in a shopping center, a drone goes out there and reaches the scene way faster than a police car.
Technology website Ars Technica’s writer Benji Edwards is one of many who reacted strongly to Ellison’s vision of AI surveillance, saying his comments raise questions about the future of citizens’ privacy and right to privacy.
“Ellison’s vision bears more than a passing resemblance to the cautionary world portrayed in George Orwell’s prescient novel 1984. In Orwell’s fiction, the totalitarian government of Oceania uses ubiquitous ‘telescreens’ to monitor citizens constantly, creating a society where privacy no longer exists and independent thought becomes nearly impossible“, Edwards notes.
“But Orwell’s famous phrase ‘Big Brother is watching you’ would take on new meaning in Ellison’s tech-driven scenario, where AI systems, rather than human watchers, would serve as the ever-vigilant eyes of authority. Once considered a sci-fi trope, automated systems are already becoming a reality: Similar automated CCTV surveillance systems have already been trialed in London Underground and at the 2024 Olympics“, he continues.
“A slave obeys”
He points out that automated surveillance systems have already been implemented in Chinese cities, among others, and that AI software is already available that can sort and organize the data collected on residents using a network of deployed surveillance cameras.
According to many observers, similar and even more advanced solutions may soon become part of everyday life in the United States and other countries, and there are warnings that a “digital dictatorship” is emerging where the surveillance state is so all-encompassing that it is impossible for anyone to escape.
“‘Good Behavior’ as defined by the billionaires who own and control everything. Otherwise known as blind obedience and willful subservience to their every whim and want. Because a slave obeys“, expresses one of many worried voices.
