What China’s AI Surveillance State Tells Us About the American Future

​Why do so many Americans object to the expansion of surveillance networks like Flock technology that can track where we drive, pervasive Ring networks that show where we walk, and government purchases of our personal data that reveal information about us that is more sensitive than a diary? After all, this is for our own good – to protect us. We can trust the government, right?

One reason for alarm among the civil liberties community is that we have seen how these separate surveillance systems can be woven together by AI to create a comprehensive surveillance state. This used to be the stuff of dystopian science fiction. Today, it is a functioning model we can see in real time across the Pacific.

Consider the Fujian Police Academy in China, which at the end of last year released an internal document that shows how AI can detect unrest by weaving together actionable intelligence from sound sensors, cameras, reports from paid community spies called “grid workers,” and other sources.

The China Media Project unearthed and analyzed this document (linked here for Mandarin readers) showing how comprehensive surveillance can further the cause of “social governance.” China Media Project reports that:

• The so-called grid workers have apps to alert the authorities to anything unusual. The telecom giant Huawei has filed a patent to pinpoint the location of images uploaded by these neighborhood spies – “and can even turn the locations depicted in the photos into a 3D model.”

 

• Guizhou Normal University showed interest last year in using OpenAI’s GPT model to rate individuals’ “personality traits,” “long-term emotional states,” or “degree of exposure on negative cultural influences.”

 

• The Southwestern University of Political Science and Law in Chongqing has created a risk-monitoring system to follow people filing petitions seeking redress over a wrong done to them by a local cadre or peer. Targets who have spread “inflammatory” comments on social media are flagged as risks.

China Media Project summarizes:

“Throughout the past year, institutions across China, both private and state-owned, have proposed variations of the same system: taking big data from China’s extensive surveillance system – including input from street cameras and satellites, noise sensors, social media posts, as well as reports from social services – and feeding it into AI models to aid predictive policing.”

Of course, Washington is not Beijing. We are not going to find ourselves having to memorize the platitudes of our Dear Leader and spout them online in order to enjoy internet and travel privileges. But the technological ambition – to fuse disparate surveillance streams into systems for “predictive policing” – is not uniquely Chinese. This ambition was reflected in the post-9/11 attempt by the Pentagon to create “total informational awareness” – an ambition finding new life in the many surveillance elements that PPSA reports on daily.

Unlike the “netizens” of China, we can urge our elected leaders to take us off the path that leads to a surveillance state. Congress has an immediate opportunity to do exactly that. One step off this path would be the passage, this April, of measures to end the purchasing of Americans’ most sensitive and personal data by the FBI, the IRS, the Department of Defense, the Department of Homeland Security, and other federal agencies.
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The lesson from China is not that America is doomed to follow the same path – but that once surveillance systems integrate, pulling them apart becomes exponentially harder. We will keep you posted as the surveillance debate heats up in Congress.

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