AI as a Tool of Government Surveillance, Says Expert

Artificial intelligence significantly eases the surveillance of individuals, stated Harry Halpin, co-founder and CEO of Nym, in a podcast with Jonathan DeYoung, reports Cointelegraph.

“Surveillance using artificial intelligence is very dangerous because small amounts of information can be used to identify and monitor you,” said Halpin.

He cited the example of metadata from phone calls, which, as revealed in 2013 by whistleblower Edward Snowden, the US government collected on a large scale.

Halpin noted that this information allows governments to “track your physical presence, which stores you visit, when you are awake, asleep, who you communicate with, befriend, and your sexual, religious, and political preferences.”

“Essentially, the whole point of surveillance is to create a kind of digital twin of you, which can be used for monitoring, controlling, and predicting behavior, and possibly even to nudge you into doing what they want. With AI, this is much easier than before,” he said. 

In June, Edward Snowden criticized the appointment of a former NSA head to the board of directors at OpenAI.

Earlier, he described CBDCs as “the latest danger looming over society.”