Before being cut from almost all means of communication with the outside world in March, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who remains in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, has shared his outlook on threats the humanity faces in connection with AI development and data protection.
One of the world’s most famous whistleblowers, Julian Assange, sought by the US for leaking classified documents through his site WikiLeaks on the Iraqi war for almost a decade, has predicted a grim scenario which is “very unstable about technological civilization,” claiming it “doesn’t go on for long” because of very rapid competition in the wired-up world.
“It can produce very robust artificial intelligences that can be coupled with states. You can see this in the United States and China… these two forces are going to take all the market. And the rapid competition between them with the backing and support of the states behind them, exacerbation of the commercial competition through the geopolitical competition will lead to an uncontrollable desire for growth of the artificial intelligence capacity, leading to a very severe conflict or stultification. That’s our biggest threat,” he said in the video, recorded before his almost complete blackout and released by the organizers of the World Ethical Data Forum in Barcelona.
According to the WikiLeaks founder, “that geopolitical competition harnessed by the largest artificial intelligence companies” are poised “to ratchet up a process which human beings can no longer control.”
“[Human] institutions are built on competition, and growing in size and dominating the market, etc. take any advantage they get and will continue to ratchet up the competition. Everything they produce has that DNA in it. That’s where we are headed, and that’s our severe threat to human beings in general, and all businesses. Perhaps the answer to that threat is that people understand computer security, offensive computer security,” Assange said in the interview.
The emerging capacity of big entities and private enterprises to pursue mass data gathering on people, in combination with the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) has also played a significant role. With Google and Baidu and Tencent and Amazon and Facebook “basically open-cut harvesting the knowledge of humankind, when we communicate with each other,” this classical model, called “surveillance capitalism” has changed now.
“It’s a really very important and severe economic change. Which is to take the surveillance capitalism model and transform it instead into a model that does not yet have a name, an ‘AI model’. Which is to use this vast reservoir to train Artificial Intelligences of different kinds. This would replace not only intermediary sectors –most things you do on the internet is in a sense more efficient intermediation– but to take over the transport sector, or create whole new sectors,” Assange stated.
He also warned against the growing vulnerability of personal data, which is more and more often targeted and stolen by criminals. Additionally, people have to negotiate their relationship with all the world’s major powers from the earliest age. Only “very few technically capable people are able to live apart,” which “smells a bit like totalitarianism,” Assange opines.
“This generation being born now… is the last free generation. You are born and either immediately or within say a year you are known globally. Your identity in one form or another –coming as a result of your idiotic parents plastering your name and photos all over Facebook or as a result of insurance applications or passport applications– is known to all major world powers. That’s a very different situation from how it previously used to be,” he stated in the video.
The social media warning from Assange was received with mixed feelings among netizens.
Seems very probable and very scary. https://t.co/gY8Uq1KQfy
— Charles O'Brien (@CharlesOBrien3) September 21, 2018
https://twitter.com/MichaelRMyers5/status/1042923204073938945
https://twitter.com/CyataJames/status/1042924997931610112
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been living in Ecuador’s UK Embassy since 2012 fearing the UK may extradite him to the US, where he could face prosecution over WikiLeaks’ publication of leaked US military and diplomatic documents. Recently Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno touched upon the issue of expelling Assange from the embassy, but noted that the UK must first guarantee the activist’s safety. His statements followed conflicting media reports that Ecuador might revoke Assange’s asylum and that the whistleblower might leave voluntarily due to his worsening health.
Its not the technology that is the threat, like all tools, it can be harnessed for good or evil. The governments are the real threat to humanity. Just look, gov’ts are totally disconnected from the rest of us. Humanity has one common enemy – leviathan collective gov’ts that oppresses the individuals. Unfortunately, most people have an attention span of a gold fish.
People must understand that governments have always been the strong arm for the super rich, the Rockefellers and Rothschilds etc. We are mere cattle, they always had full control. Elections would be abolished if they would change anything. Mark Twain said this over a 100 years ago. All the wars have been orchestrated to control us. It was never about nations, politics or religion. Those are just fairy tale stories for us to believe in some reasons to die for. Just always remember the government doesn’t care about us, they pillage, rape and steal for the elites.
Its this dependency on governments that needs slaying in the minds of the masses. Once this change takes place, I believe that the world would transform in a heart beat. Humanity would evolve into happy and creative beings. Which, if you remember, is what most of us were born as. Life should not be this difficult. Life should be joyous, mostly. Central planners only exist because we refuse to believe in our selves.
If nothing changes, then what Julian fears will become the reality. Its really not hard to see where all of these is heading. The 1960s represented the last burst of the human being before it was extinguished. From then on and towards the rest of humanity’s future, all that will remain are zombies walking around – feeling nothing, thinking nothing and nobody will be left anymore to remind them that there was once a specie called a human being with feelings and thoughts. Our history and memory right now are being erased, and soon nobody will remember that ‘life’ once existed on the planet.
AI is NOT going to be the “Destiny” of “Divine Providence/Prime Source Creator”! Wo-Man/Man God is the What will become of Those of the ORIGINAL “Creation”.As those now arriving Energies take over, The Current “Control System” will be taken down…ASCENSION INTO ONENESS WITH DIVINE SOURCE IS.
While I knew most of the jest behind what Jillian said here & agree which there’d be a way to convey this to the non believers love you Jillian I pray you get to someday live out the remainder of you’re life in happiness & peace
There is an obvious attack against privacy, but this is not an AI thing. AI is what: Software or algorithm which changes according to new data. I don’t think it is fundamentally different from what we had before, but I suspect it may be extremely efficient and become dangerous for this reason.
Solution: Shut down facebook, and similar sites? Or make bad news about them so people stop using them. So good guys need to control finance and then media, ans also armies, and intelligence, and food supply, and medicine and environment. So we need to find a way to detect good and bad people. One way is to check their facial features, genetic material, or past history. But this is exactly what we don’t want to happen. Then as an alternative, bring a system which naturally brings good people to power., or makes sure that whoever comes to power their joint decisions will always be good.
For example make sure smart and good people’s votes have higher value, but do this without making them feeling bad. Let machines decide who might be criminal, but not let people know about it until an action is necessary. Collect everyones private data in encrypted form which can’t be accessed normally, but open it up when there is enough amount of consent. For example someone may become extremely rich and can’t explain how he got all, and where he is hiding things. Then use the magic ball and see everything.
Disagree Mike, you are creating division once again. This does not fall under universal law of oneness.
The problem with everybody’s data been collected is that it is made available to a select few. Do you know anything about the Rothschilds’? Do you know anything about the Rockafellas’ – nope, you don’t even know how they move money around do you? Do you know that they manipulate stock markets to their own advantage, would they be considered bad people Mike? Do you think that they worry about voting? No of course not, they ‘own’ us.
And yet they have got everything they need to know about you……