Will Technology Make Privacy too Dangerous to be Tolerated?

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Discussion Overview

The discussion revolves around the implications of advancing technology on privacy, particularly in the context of potential bioterrorism and government surveillance. Participants explore historical precedents, current practices, and future scenarios regarding privacy and monitoring in society.

Discussion Character

  • Debate/contested
  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation

Main Points Raised

  • Some participants suggest that the ability to create dangerous biological agents, such as smallpox, using advanced technology is already feasible and could lead to severe consequences.
  • Others argue that historical examples, such as totalitarian regimes, illustrate the dangers of unchecked surveillance and the need for checks and balances on government power.
  • There is a contention about the practicality of tracking every individual's actions, with some asserting that it is impossible due to the sheer volume of data, while others believe AI could facilitate such monitoring.
  • Some participants express skepticism about the likelihood of a bioterrorism event occurring despite the technological capabilities, citing the need for specialized facilities and regulations to prevent such incidents.
  • Concerns are raised about the philosophical implications of a society that feels the need to monitor everyone to prevent potential threats, with references to Orwellian concepts of surveillance.
  • Participants discuss the balance between privacy rights and the perceived need for security, with differing views on whether technology will ultimately lead to a loss of privacy or if it can coexist with civil liberties.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

The discussion remains unresolved, with multiple competing views on the relationship between technology, privacy, and government surveillance. Participants express differing opinions on the feasibility of comprehensive monitoring and the implications for civil rights.

Contextual Notes

Participants reference various historical and contemporary examples to support their arguments, but there is no consensus on the implications of these examples for future privacy rights or government actions. The discussion includes speculative scenarios that are not universally accepted.

einswine
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Date 20??: Full plans for the first DIY design your own genome 3D printable LifeMachine are posted on line.

Date 20?? + 2: 214 million people are killed when a terrorist bio-hacker releases a variant of a Small Pox virus they created using the now ironically named LifeMachine.

Date 20?? + 2.5:
Government is given power and authority to track everything everyone does.

Doesn't this general kind of thing seem inevitable? Or is it just that my dyspeptic, dystopian disposition deludes me here?
 
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einswine said:
Doesn't this general kind of thing seem inevitable?
It's inevitable and has already happened, hasn't it? Consider Nazi Germany and Stalinist Soviet Union where everyone was watched all the time. To a large extent this kind of thing exists in China right now.

It would be more widespread around the world and throughout history, except that there are always people who see that granting "power and authority to track everything everyone does" is flypaper for people who'd abuse that power for their own benefit. The trackers have to be, themselves, tracked, the police policed, the governors governed. There has to be a strong system of checks and balances.
 
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einswine said:
Government is given power and authority to track everything everyone does.

Isn't that going on now?
 
russ_watters said:
What does privacy have to do with that scenario?

Privacy: the state or condition of being free from being observed or disturbed by other people.

The idea here is that there will be a perceived need to observe and monitor every thing every one does as the only method of guaranteeing that some individual does not use technology to destroy civilization.

And no, Hornbein,I don't think it has gone nearly as far as it can/will.
 
It would be impossible in practice to track EVERYTHING done by EVERYONE because most of the collected data would have no value at all, and you'd need probably around six trained analysts to study the data for each person.
Obviously whatever level of tacking does go on must be related to what extent an individual might be considered suspicious for some reason.
That being said, it's already shockingly obvious that terrorism inclined individuals do get away literally with murder, despite that there might be a good reason to consider them as suspect.
 
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rootone said:
It would be impossible in practice to track EVERYTHING done by EVERYONE because most of the collected data would have no value at all, and you'd need probably around six trained analysts to study the data for each person.

Yes, but it won't be humans doing the monitoring, it will be AIs and humans will only have to bother with the important stuff.
 
Yea, pretty much. But the level of detail of observation is still fairly primitive and so is AI.
 
  • #10
einswine said:
Date 20?? + 2: 214 million people are killed when a terrorist bio-hacker releases a variant of a Small Pox virus they created using the now ironically named LifeMachine.

You don't need a science-fictional "LifeMachine" to do this. Such work has been possible for about a decade:
In 2002, after a two-year effort, a team of researchers announced that they had assembled the entire polio virus. To do that, the team had to assemble 7,500 base pairs of DNA, precisely in order. The next year, scientists managed to knock years off the process, assembling a bacteriophage with 5,300 base pairs in just two weeks.

Two years later, in 2005, researchers’ capabilities had tripled. A team managed to synthesize an influenza virus with 14,000 base pairs. Just a year later, they had surpassed that mark by a factor of ten, synthesizing the Epstein-Barr virus, with 170,000 base pairs.

Smallpox has 180,000.

By 2005, whether smallpox would be synthesized was simply a matter of choice, not of capability.
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stewart-abercrombie-baker/smallpox-in-the-garage_b_596340.html)

Given that 20?? is circa 2005, you hypothesis seems incorrect.
 
  • #11
Ygggdrasil said:
Given that 20?? is circa 2005, you hypothesis seems incorrect.
You are neglecting the fact his scenario includes an actual terrorist use of the virus. That is the thing that would trigger a crackdown on privacy.
 
  • #12
The date of the (excellent) article to which you posted a link is "06/03/2010 01:43 pm ET" and the prognostication of the author was:

Within ten years, any competent biologist with a good lab and up-to-date DNA synthesis skills will be able to recreate the smallpox virus from scratch. Millions of people will have it in their power to waft this cruel death into the air, where it can feed on a world that has given up its immunity.

Adding 10 to 2010 I get 2020. And that was for "competent biologist with a good lab and up-to-date DNA synthesis skills" so I think the hypothesis stands. What am I missing?
 
  • #13
Even though the technological capabilities for bioterrorism exist, such a terrorist attack not occurred likely because using such technologies requires specialized facilities. It is one thing to synthesize and assemble the smallpox genome. It is another to culture the cells required to produce physical samples of the virus. It is likely that governments could stop such attacks by regulating access to some of the specialized equipment required without having to go full on 1984. This could work in a similar way to existing laws and practices to prevent access to the material for "dirty bombs."
 
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  • #14
einswine said:
The date of the (excellent) article to which you posted a link is "06/03/2010 01:43 pm ET" and the prognostication of the author was:

Within ten years, any competent biologist with a good lab and up-to-date DNA synthesis skills will be able to recreate the smallpox virus from scratch. Millions of people will have it in their power to waft this cruel death into the air, where it can feed on a world that has given up its immunity.

Adding 10 to 2010 I get 2020. And that was for "competent biologist with a good lab and up-to-date DNA synthesis skills" so I think the hypothesis stands. What am I missing?
Does it matter? I took your smallpox example to be just that: an example, and not a scenario you specifically want to discuss. Your point was that technology could be used by criminals leading to a reactionary crackdown on privacy: a philosophy to the effect that everyone has to be watched at all times.
 
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  • #15
einswine said:
The idea here is that there will be a perceived need to observe and monitor every thing every one does as the only method of guaranteeing that some individual does not use technology to destroy civilization.
Ok, well, there exists today some risk that a small group of people could get ahold of a nuclear weapon. I guess you were just trying to find a doomsday scenario to apply your privacy logic to.

So, my opinion on the privacy logic is that AI and surveillance technology (not to mention cost) does not make 1984's Big Brother feasible/possible and even if it did, it could never be reconciled with the US's concept of privacy rights.
 
  • #16
russ_watters said:
Ok, well, there exists today some risk that a small group of people could get ahold of a nuclear weapon. I guess you were just trying to find a doomsday scenario to apply your privacy logic to.

I was trying to give an example of the increasing "power" that technology bestows across domains and that projecting forward it does not look good to me.

russ_watters said:
... it could never be reconciled with the US's concept of privacy rights.

I used to believe that before the attacks on 9/11 showed how deeply we are actually committed to privacy rights.

I truly don't like my conjecture and hope I am wrong but am still haven't heard a convincing hopeful counter argument.
 
  • #17
einswine said:
I truly don't like my conjecture and hope I am wrong but am still haven't heard a convincing hopeful counter argument.
Counter-argument to what? I don't see that you've provided an argument, you've just described a scenario. You haven't provided an argument as to why you think the scenario would happen the way you describe.
 
  • #18
I don't really have an argument, I have a set of tentative assumptions backing a weak hypothesis. My intent was to provoke thoughtful conversation from which I could learn. But I have obviously failed and so will leave it with the general tacit assumptions behind the example scenario and my apologies for the lack of rigor in my post.

1. The power of science driven technology is increasing non-linearly and without obvious near limits.

2. Humans are a disparate lot psychologically. Some are intelligent, effective sociopaths.

3. Make enough destructive power available to everyone and someone will certainly use it with catastrophic results. (For the scenario given eco terrorists would be the likely actors.)

4. Given the publics response to the attacks of 9/11, a death toll of millions will lead the general public to reject the right to privacy altogether.
 
  • #19
1,2,3 have effectively been the case since we learned how much damage can be inflicted by controlled use of fire.
4. WW1+2, actual catastrophic events on a bigger scale than 9-11 and ultimately involving the use of nukes, did not result in a general desire to abandon individual privacy as a right.

Nevertheless I think your example scenario is a great idea for the next James Bond movie :))
 
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  • #20
Thanks rootone. I think I will take the answer to be just my dyspeptic, dystopian dispositional bias. At least for now:smile: