How it started, how it's going: revisiting the warnings of the past

Revisiting Feb 12, 2024 with astronomer Sam Lawler:

• Debris Found in North Carolina Came From SpaceX Dragon, NASA Says (gift link, NYT, July 1, 2024): “An object found on a hiking trail west of Asheville, N.C., had traveled to the International Space Station, the space agency said.”

• From Scientific American, Satellite Mega Constellations Could Jeopardize Ozone-Hole Recovery (June 25, 2024): “Pollution from skyrocketing numbers of satellites burning up in Earth’s atmosphere could threaten our planet’s protective ozone layer.”

    --> (Paper referenced in SciAm above.) From Geophysical Research Letters, Potential Ozone Depletion From Satellite Demise During Atmospheric Reentry in the Era of Mega-Constellations (June 11, 2024):

With ongoing plans for many constellations of small satellites, the number of objects orbiting the Earth is expected to continue increasing in the foreseeable future. At the end of service life, satellites are disposed into the atmosphere, burning up during the process and generating aluminum oxides, which are known to accelerate ozone depletion.

. . . We find that the population of reentering satellites in 2022 caused a 29.5% increase of aluminum in the atmosphere above the natural level, resulting in around 17 metric tons of aluminum oxides injected into the mesosphere. The byproducts generated by the reentry of satellites in a future scenario where mega-constellations come to fruition can reach over 360 metric tons per year. As aluminum oxide nanoparticles may remain in the atmosphere for decades, they can cause significant ozone depletion.

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Revisiting July 19, 2021 with Jon Fasman, author of We See It All:

• From Cameras placed all over are recording drivers’ license plates. Who’s watching, and should we worry? (Fort Worth Star-Telegram, March 27, 2024):

Last July, a license plate-reading camera in Española, New Mexico, misread the 2 on Jaclynn Gonzales’ plate for a 7, incorrectly flagging her car as stolen while she was driving with her 12-year-old sister. Gonzales was 21 at the time.

The officer who pulled them over, however, did not double check for the machine error before handcuffing the sisters and putting them in the back of his patrol vehicle.

• License plate cameras help solve crimes, but are creating a backlash over privacy concerns (Chicago Tribune, June 17, 2024):

Alarmed by the reach and rapid expansion of these cameras, privacy advocates have filed suit in Illinois, saying the cameras violate the Constitution’s protections against unreasonable search. They say it amounts to a national surveillance system of innocent drivers.

. . . Critics are concerned that the networks could be misused, as when police have stalked ex-wives or romantic rivals by tracing their plates, or when the wrong vehicles are mistakenly pulled over.

• FedEx’s Secretive Police Force Is Helping Cops Build An AI Car Surveillance Network (Forbes, June 20, 2024):

Forbes has learned the shipping and business services company is using AI tools made by Flock Safety, a $4 billion car surveillance startup, to monitor its distribution and cargo facilities across the United States. . . . [Also,] some local police departments are also sharing their Flock feeds with FedEx — a rare instance of a private company availing itself of a police surveillance apparatus.

To civil rights activists, such close collaboration has the potential to dramatically expand Flock’s car surveillance network, which already spans 4,000 cities across over 40 states and some 40,000 cameras that track vehicles by license plate, make, model, color and other identifying characteristics, like dents or bumper stickers.

• Amazon-Powered AI Cameras Used to Detect Emotions of Unwitting UK Train Passengers (Wired, June 17, 2024):

Thousands of people catching trains in the United Kingdom likely had their faces scanned by Amazon software as part of widespread artificial intelligence trials, new documents reveal. The image recognition system was used to predict travelers’ age, gender, and potential emotions—with the suggestion that the data could be used in advertising systems in the future.

During the past two years, eight train stations around the UK—including large stations such as London’s Euston and Waterloo, Manchester Piccadilly, and other smaller stations—have tested AI surveillance technology with CCTV cameras with the aim of alerting staff to safety incidents and potentially reducing certain types of crime.

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Revisiting May 8, 2023 with Nita Farahany, author, The Battle for Your Brain:

• Your Brain Waves Are Up for Sale. A New Law Wants to Change That. (NYT, April 17, 2024):

The companies behind such technologies have access to the records of the users’ brain activity — the electrical signals underlying our thoughts, feelings and intentions.

On Wednesday, Governor Jared Polis of Colorado signed a bill that, for the first time in the United States, tries to ensure that such data remains truly private.

. . . Experts say that the neurotechnology industry is poised to expand as major tech companies like Meta, Apple and Snapchat become involved.

“It’s moving quickly, but it’s about to grow exponentially,” said Nita Farahany, a professor of law and philosophy at Duke.

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Checking in on Silicon Valley titans hyping and overpromising AI - from April 8, 2024, the "outrage roundup" show:

• CEO of Microsoft AI speaks about the future of artificial intelligence at Aspen Ideas Festival (June 25, 2024): “Mustafa Suleyman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, speaks with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin.”

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Regarding the December 11, 2023 interview with The Dark Cloud author Guillaume Pitron:

• Google’s emissions climb nearly 50% in five years due to AI energy demand (July 2, 2024):

Google’s goal of reducing its climate footprint is in jeopardy as it relies on more and more energy-hungry data centres to power its new artificial intelligence products. The tech giant revealed Tuesday that its greenhouse gas emissions have climbed 48% over the past five years. . . .

The tech company, which has invested substantially in AI, said its “extremely ambitious” goal of reaching net zero emissions by 2030 “won’t be easy”.