 Pictured: Jimmy Carr. PHOTO CREDIT: Eamonn Forde, bigissue.com As Congress debates surveillance policy, there is increasing focus on the role of artificial intelligence in weaving together disparate strands of information to create “total informational awareness.” The elements of an American surveillance state are clearly falling into place. To illustrate this danger, we often point to revelations from the secret FISA court, reports from the intelligence community, and surveillance scandals unearthed by journalists. But today we point to the words of Jimmy Carr, a British and Irish comedian. There is no denying that Carr is truly funny, though his jokes can sometimes cross the line from edgy to reprehensible. Carr is also truly bright. This Cambridge graduate shared some sobering insights about the nature of AI and freedom on the UK free speech podcast Triggernometry clips. When asked about the threat of AI, Carr noted the “one rule of history – unintended consequences.” He continued: “People are worried about the wrong thing with AI, in my humble opinion. People are worried about losing their job. It’s a perfectly valid thing to worry about, but I think you’re worried about the wrong thing … “The cost of running an authoritarian regime, like the Stasi, has come down by 10 orders of magnitude in the last three years … When you had to run their Stasi, if you were in East Germany back in the day, it was like 20 percent of the GDP [spent] on spying on people and keeping an eye out. “Now you’ve got a bunch of cameras, you’ve got AI, everyone’s got a phone on them, and we’re tracking everything at all times. Okay? That’s a worry, because we live in liberal democracies, and we’re very lucky too. But our leaders, how long will they resist that temptation?” He then turned to the dangers of digital identification. “There’s lots of lessons from history about digital ID, that we should take very seriously. Because even if the good guys are in charge when it comes in, well, at what point does the world turn and people vote for a bad guy? And then they have the power.” Carr underscored this point with one devastating observation: “More Jews died in the Netherlands than in France. You know why? Better records.” Carr quoted Thomas Sowell, who said: “There are no solutions. There are only tradeoffs.” Carr added that “safety and freedom” are the tradeoffs of our times. He asked: “Where do you want to draw that line?” Carr concluded: “Civilization is a clearing in the forest. We need to stand very firm against any authoritarian regime, whether it comes from the left or the right, whether it comes from a good place or a bad place. We have to resist that.” Comments are closed.
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