The Future, a 2023 novel by Naomi Alderman follows a group of mega-rich billionaires who use predictive AI to track events and warn them when it was time to escape to their personal safe retreats. A chilling reminder of the power of AI and how it can be abused in the wrong hands.
I wrote about the danger of continuous monitoring in a prior column. One topic I addressed was trying to stop crime before it was committed, specifically referencing Minority Report, a book by Philip K. Dick and later turned into a movie. Below is a link to the full column.
A recent New York Times Article shows how this concept has taken a chilling turn.
New research examines how a Chinese company struggled to develop its predictive surveillance technology while U.S. restrictions were in place.
“A Chinese company has been trying to develop artificial intelligence-powered technology that would enable authoritarian governments to not just monitor dissidents but also potentially predict who could become one in the future.
The work, which appears to be in the research stage, is ripped out of dystopian science fiction, offering a glimpse of a world in which an authoritarian state is able to move against its citizens before they begin any public dissent.
The Chinese company, Geedge Networks, sells a commercial version of the Great Firewall, the surveillance and censorship software that China uses to control online activity. Those tools allow governments to monitor internet traffic and flag when someone tries to get around traditional internet censorship.
But according to leaked company documents, the firm is working on new products that use artificial intelligence to examine location data and internet use to predict who could do or say something critical of the government, according to researchers at Vanderbilt University.”
Here’s a short YouTube video from KBS (Korean Broadcasting System) covering this topic.
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I’m working on my next novel, Patriot Enforcer. I hope to have a first draft by labor day. Lots of near future military political action. The book features a new female protagonist, TEA (Temporal Enforcement Agency) Commander Jac Remington. She’s a military pilot and a time traveler. Her job is to keep the Patriot Party in power. By controlling the past, the Party can control the future. It’s a job Jac never wanted and now she’s fighting back.
I’ll write occasional posts over the summer and plan on getting back to weekly or every other week posts after Labor Day.
Enjoy the summer weather!
My new novel, Electromagnetic Assault, is available for purchase in all three formats:
Print book
ebook
Audiobook
You can order now from:
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