No. In 50 years it will probably be possible for the U.S. to have total drone surveillance of a country. We could assign everyone their own drone that monitors their behavior and alerts us if they do something we don’t like. And even if this proves not to be the case, rather than resort to genocide couldn’t we just cut off electricity to dangerous areas?
Your solution appears to require first conquering the entire world. Also, drones can’t tell what’s happening inside a building, or what’s in the packages or trucks going in and out of a building. Unless you mean micro-drones too small to detect, which is possible.
General point taken: It is very difficult to talk about what would be necessary 50 years from now.
Much of the world would likely support total drone surveillance of certain countries. Also, in fifty years we could probably put recording devices in peoples’ brains that tell us everything they say and hear, and combine this with AI to immediately identify any terrorist threats.
If we’re talking about brain implants and advanced AI, the the singularity would occur by the time we reach this level of development. The problem is: what if superweapons occur before superintelligence?
Doesn’t the US have some sort of “fourth amendment” which prevents surveillance of its own citizens (who might become terrorists)? And, unlike spying on internet usage, people are going to be really aware of drones buzzing them.
No, it does not. The Fourth Amendment prevents “unreasonable searches and seizures”—there is no explicit right to privacy in the US Constitution. The Supreme Court managed to find one, though (via a “penumbra of rights”), for a specific politicized purpose, but hasn’t been willing to take it seriously otherwise.
There are a few current court cases against the NSA surveillance in the US, but none got anywhere so far.
Yes, but, as they say “the constitution isn’t a suicide pact” and if the only way to stop mass terrorist attacks in the U.S. is by trashing the fourth amendment, the fourth amendment will get trashed.
No. In 50 years it will probably be possible for the U.S. to have total drone surveillance of a country. We could assign everyone their own drone that monitors their behavior and alerts us if they do something we don’t like. And even if this proves not to be the case, rather than resort to genocide couldn’t we just cut off electricity to dangerous areas?
Your solution appears to require first conquering the entire world. Also, drones can’t tell what’s happening inside a building, or what’s in the packages or trucks going in and out of a building. Unless you mean micro-drones too small to detect, which is possible.
General point taken: It is very difficult to talk about what would be necessary 50 years from now.
Much of the world would likely support total drone surveillance of certain countries. Also, in fifty years we could probably put recording devices in peoples’ brains that tell us everything they say and hear, and combine this with AI to immediately identify any terrorist threats.
If we’re talking about brain implants and advanced AI, the the singularity would occur by the time we reach this level of development. The problem is: what if superweapons occur before superintelligence?
Like, say, in 1945?
I don’t think what I described would require a super-intelligence.
No, but the scenario you’re describing reminds me very much of the post on the definition of existential threat. In particular,
Networking loads of brains together is one of the more eclectic proposals on how to create a super-intelligence.
The simpler proposal of panopticon surveillance plus AI to interpret the data might be doable without AGI however.
Doesn’t the US have some sort of “fourth amendment” which prevents surveillance of its own citizens (who might become terrorists)? And, unlike spying on internet usage, people are going to be really aware of drones buzzing them.
No, it does not. The Fourth Amendment prevents “unreasonable searches and seizures”—there is no explicit right to privacy in the US Constitution. The Supreme Court managed to find one, though (via a “penumbra of rights”), for a specific politicized purpose, but hasn’t been willing to take it seriously otherwise.
There are a few current court cases against the NSA surveillance in the US, but none got anywhere so far.
Yes, but, as they say “the constitution isn’t a suicide pact” and if the only way to stop mass terrorist attacks in the U.S. is by trashing the fourth amendment, the fourth amendment will get trashed.
Unfortunately, if this is the case people will probably only realise it after the first serious mass terrorist attacks.
I place a high probability on the NSA already doing things that pre-9/11 would have been considered gross violations of the fourth amendment.
As in, like, 99%? :-D That seems to be a “well, duh” observation.