By Jennifer Gusset
Objections are being raised to the recent (or imminent) installment of automated license plate readers in Eugene-Springfield traffic intersections. One point mentioned is that community members have not had input into the decision to place them, yet all of us are subject to their usage.
While the readers are a tool to assist police investigations in the name of community safety, simultaneously, they are intrusive into the lives of the public. This conversation offers an opportunity for a much broader, and belated, discussion about creeping and/or creepy surveillance, plus the use of technology in its many wide-ranging applications with concomitant costs and impacts.
Video and audio recording are commonplace today. Few would need reminding to realize that in practically every hand, home and office images and voices are captured, spread and stored countless times hourly for communication, fun, entertainment, education, documentation, archiving and more.
Additionally, cameras and other recording devices are mounted street-facing on cars and houses. Our shops, stores, theaters, public and other buildings and buses are riddled with them. Even new Amtrak trains about to launch next year will be so bedecked.
Police, military and personal drones are omnipresent, sometimes weaponized, spies. And, then we have an array of satellites with increasingly fine definition circulating and viewing the Earth.
We are on “candid camera” nearly everywhere — like it or not, for better and for worse. Recently, locally, there was an elderly person with memory challenges reported as missing, discovered to be nearby thanks to the usage of a bus pass, which was a comfort and relief, of course. Simultaneously, it is a demonstration of yet another one of several forms of behavioral tracking to which we are unwittingly, constantly subjected. Artificial intelligence.
Ubiquitously, AI defines our lives more and more, moment to moment, whipping adults and children at breakneck speed from algorithm to algorithm. Inevitable progress some would say and valuable beyond reproach. And, maybe not.
AI demands massive energy usage to the extent that nuclear power — new in form, still deadly dangerous in potential — is being promulgated. At least one private AI creation entity has suggested they build their own nuclear power plant(s) to keep pace with their power needs. (Power being the operative word.)
Wouldn’t it be prudent to question the overall benefit vs. harm of technological inventions before deployment? Cat’s outta the bag on that one. Too little scrutiny too late. Better late than never? We are on the verge of beyond control corporate control.
Must we just accept this techno-wizardry (surveillance and otherwise) foisted upon us, no questions asked? Do we, as a community, want to prioritize living in fear, considering police-state activity to be the price we pay? Should we have a say, or should we trust officialdom to make such decisions for us? Might we have the courage to take up the tough challenge to seek common good? Here’s an ironic possibility: maybe such inquiry could lead to unification of our polarized-thinking world. Unification, as I see it, upon which the future of all life may depend.