Rob Wiblin: belief

Transcript context

…I worry a great deal about surveillance, which, of course, has proceeded most rapidly in China. If surveillance really would make us safer, that would be an argument for it. But surveillance tends to corrupt your rulers, and it tends to increase the returns to being in charge. I think, over time, it increases the chances of, say, a coup d’état or political instability in China. Even though you have more stability at the ground level, you may have less stability at the top. I think this is one of the two or three biggest issues facing the world right now: What are we going to do with surveillance and AI, facial and gait recognition? I don’t think we know what to do. I would say I more worry about it than applaud it. I think I’m with you. I’m not sure whether more surveillance or less surveillance is better right now. But it seems like finding better ways to govern surveillance, given that we’re probably going to have quite a lot of it, so that it doesn’t lead to these negative political outcomes, could be an extremely important research question that more think tanks should be looking into. Yes, and it’s quite possibly true that the gains in surveillance we’ve had so far are what have limited some of the potential sequel attacks to 9/11. We can’t know that for sure as outsiders, but many people suggest this is probably the case.…

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