In class we discussed AI, surveillance, and the ethics surrounding both of them. I would like to focus on surveillance. Surveillance is a touchy subject because it deals with two things that people value very much and the balance between them, these being safety and privacy. If everybody was under surveillance 24/7, they would be very safe and without worry, but that also means their freedom and privacy would be basically nonexistent.
Personally, I am quite conflicted about surveillance. This is because I value my privacy very much, but I also don’t have too much to hide. I would definitely not feel comfortable completely giving up my privacy though. My biggest concerns about surveillance are when your average citizen is being listened to and watched constantly and when there is being surveillance data sold by and to companies.
I think the first thing we can do to make surveillance safer is to make selling surveillance data illegal. This way companies cannot profit off of selling your locations, what you do online, and other various things. Another complicated issue in surveillance is when it is combined with AI. For example, when facial recognition is implemented into security cameras, it becomes very easy to identify criminals (positive effect on safety), but it also means that you can be identified and tracked no matter where you go (negative effect on privacy).
In my opinion, the only way to maintain the balance between safety and privacy in terms of surveillance is to keep the surveillance in public settings. We should also require companies to more prominently display what they will be tracking when you use their services.
https://cs.stanford.edu/people/eroberts/cs181/projects/ethics-of-surveillance/ethics.html
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