THIS WEEK IN SURVEILLANCE

“WE DON’T FEEL HEARD”: HOW THE GOVERNMENT WILL USE AI SOCIAL LISTENING TO CONTROL PUBLIC SENTIMENT

It’s couched as empowering technology.

A group of elderly people gathered to talk about various problems regarding their living conditions, medical care, and / or state of the world, aren’t just speaking to each other, or even interviewers from representative institutions of government service agencies.

No, AI technology called Local Voices Network, or LVN, is also listening to conversation, providing semantic analysis, detecting the most important tidbits, and creating an archive that allows for quick retrieval and review, as well as sophisticated sentiment and trend querying and reporting.

Developed at MIT, LVN is already on the radar of government acquisition, and is being operationalized via a non-profit named Cortico, as reported by govtech.com.

Deb Roy, co-founder of Cortico, outlined the technology:

“Through a powerful combination of AI and human listening, LVN enables organizations to gather people for recorded small group conversations around their life experiences, to make sense of the conversations they collect, and to surface community voices into public dialog and decision-making.”

Good Intentions As Big Brother Steps Up Its Listening Game With AI

To hear researchers explain it, LVN is benignly intended:

The public sector [ie. government] could look to such technologies to elevate citizen voices.

“As we listen to people in recorded small group conversations across the country, we hear one sentiment again and again: ‘When we speak up, we don’t feel heard,’” Roy said. In-person forums such as town halls and open meetings also fall short: They typically attract the “usual voices” of the same committed community members, “in what are often symbolic, ineffective efforts to capture real community input.”

What could possibly go wrong with AI LVN systems being rolled out into community settings, to record and allow for the meta-analysis and ready retrieval of a virtually unlimited treasure trove of group conversations?

The recent outcry over the historically unprecedented FBI raid on a former President’s residence over “classified documents” suggests the dangers that citizens may soon face for voicing virtually any concerns critical of government actions.

FBI Director Christopher Wray quickly branded voices critical of the FBI and DOJ’s very arguable abuse of power as contributing to a “dangerous” incitement to violence against government authorities.

The criminalization of speech deemed “dangerous disinformation” has been one of the most Constitutionally corrosive marks of the Biden administration.

With technology like LVN, it’s easy to imagine the government imposing surveillance and control technology under the guise of enhancing “equity” by procuring the sentiments of “underserved” and “disenfranchised” segments of the population.

What it does after that, is unfortunately, likely to be of no benefit to anyone but the technocratic powers seeking to crush any opposition to their authority.

For related reading, see: 

• “AI MENTAL HEALTH “INTERVENTIONS” ABOUT TO GET REAL” (8 Mar 2022)
• “NEW EVIDENCE CDC DIRECTED BIG TECH TO MONITOR AND BAN COVID DISSENT” (2 Aug 2022)
• “‘DANGEROUS DISINFORMATION’ LABEL BEING USED TO GUT FUNDAMENTAL FREE SPEECH RIGHTS” (5 Apr 2022)

“GOVERNMENT: FREE SPEECH IS BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH” (21 Sep 2021)