Machines Like Us

Privacy activists have been lamenting increasing surveillance by cameras and warn of abuse by authorities who have access to them. But two additional trends portend a disturbing new direction. The first trend: Cameras are increasingly monitoring noncriminals engaged in technically legal behavior. The second trend: Special new artificial intelligence software is processing video feeds to look for unacceptable behavior.

The machines are watching us, and they are making judgments about what we do.

Another way of looking at these colliding trends is that we are beginning to offload the human capacity for ethics, morality and good citizenship to computer systems. At the very least, these systems are replacing the traditional role of the nosy neighbor.

Read full story in ComputerWorld