back to article Ellison declares Oracle all-in on AI mass surveillance, says it'll keep everyone in line

AI is on the verge of ushering in a new era of mass surveillance, says Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, adding that his juggernaut is ready to serve as the technological backbone for such applications. Those applications including keeping everyone "on their best behavior" through the use of constant real-time machine-learning- …

  1. spold Silver badge

    Don't disagree with his Newspeak

    ...that would be a thoughtcrime.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Don't disagree with his Newspeak

      Larry Ellison is an obsolete tart.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Don't disagree with his Newspeak

        Dear Mister Ellison.

        To see the results of what happens when people are tracked and monitored by governments for their own good, there is a single destination you need to visit.

        It's called Auschwitz.

      2. Someone Else Silver badge

        Re: Don't disagree with his Newspeak

        Larry Ellison is an obsolete tart fart.

        There FTFY.

        Being a left-ponder, it seems that tart is a bit to genteel for He Who Would Be The Next Minister of Truth. Now if there is a more sinister side to the word that we left-ponders might not know about, then I stand corrected, and would withdraw my "fix"

  2. Aleph0
    Stop

    Torment Nexus by Oracle

    Billionaires aren't even trying to hide their aims any longer, are they...

    1. ecofeco Silver badge

      Re: Torment Nexus by Oracle

      They never were if you were paying attention.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Survailance without enforcement

    Mass surveillance is useless unless you have a police state. Everyone has seen recent videos of daylight robbery in US retail shops. Neither supposed mass surveillance by the Big Tech helped prevent scam and enormous disinformation campaigns. Once judiciary system is also automated, maybe. You'll need AI lawyers. Else mass surveillance is a nuisance and a privacy risk.

    It may work in countries with less human rights. Though sometimes I wish western countries introduced certain citizen ratings. For example reducing score for theft, destruction of public property etc. With an option to clear the records provided considerable monetary compensation. Even punishing small theft will help by addressing "broken windows", as chewing gum in Singapore. Corruption is a learnt behavior from small things unpunished.

    Ironically the ratings are de facto provided by third parties: background checks, credit scores etc. Some are scraped from social networks. This hypocrisy makes things difficult, expensive, but well available to the richest. How is the business supposed to perform, when vandalism and theft are rampant. Cost of security systems and personnel is huge.

    1. IGotOut Silver badge

      Re: Survailance without enforcement

      "With an option to clear the records provided considerable monetary compensation"

      So just like now then?

      The poor get hit the hardest and the rich just buy their way out?

      Laws were, and always will be made for the protection of the rich and powerful. Any protection it provides to the poor is just a side show.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Survailance without enforcement

        > the rich just buy their way out?

        First, stealing 1 million would require a prison term and a costly law enforcement procedure. Alternatively, in a friendlier society, the cost would be 250k plus returning the stolen 1M. Second, rich people are a tiny percentage of the population. Third, in some Scandinavian countries, I heard, road tickets are adjusted to person's wealth. Forth, the society will function much better for the poor, as any crime-infested country proves by contradiction.

        Habits become character. The goal is to tackle small crime. Besides it is disproportionally expensive to involve law enforcement for small crime, yet it must be addressed for educational reasons. Parents should bear the score points for their kids. Or pay on spot, thus compensating businesses and public budget.

        The relative compensation should be larger for small goods. For example a stolen water bottle should cost 100x the price. A stolen iPhone would require 1.5x payment (100% for the phone if damaged + 50% punishment payback). Additional coefficients should be added for hard-to-catch crimes, such as graffiti.

        The situation would dramatically improve within a year from the introduction of the scores. The worse offenders will be denied access to public transportation etc. Businesses will be allowed to deny their entrance. There are no human rights without responsibility.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Survailance without enforcement

          "Parents should bear the score points for their kids"

          This is key. The "state" wants to take over parental responsibility so they can mold children to the state's needs. God help our children. We should also remember that the "state" becomes a group of depraved, corrupt, power mad people who want everything. The more power they have the worse they become. Never a truer word than; "Absolute power, corrupts absolutely".

          1. LBJsPNS Bronze badge

            Re: Survailance without enforcement

            Absolute nonsense remains absolute.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Survailance without enforcement

          Or, just accept into Law that my property is worth FAR more to me than ANY thief's life...

          After enough thieves die while attempting to 'redistribute the wealth', the rest will get the point.

          --

          1. LBJsPNS Bronze badge

            Re: Survailance without enforcement

            What a fine example of humanity you turned out to be.

        3. Captain Hogwash Silver badge

          Re: Survailance without enforcement

          Are you posting from the Chinese embassy to UK or USA? Surely you wouldn't dare use a VPN from inside the People's Republic would you?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Survailance without enforcement

            Talking of China. Buying drugs should be added to the personal score too. Many (mostly?) rich people take drugs, as they are expensive. Making such scores public will scare the sh*t out of them, as this would destroy careers. So let them pay once, and never finance drug cartels again. This would be a better approach than either criminalizing or decriminalizing drugs.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Survailance without enforcement

        Not quite. The poor as in poverty stricken stay poor, the middle class and professionals (us) join the poor (slaves).

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Survailance without enforcement

      You will lose your human rights. The chaos and 2 tier policing/justice is intentional and planned. It is to destroy our current society and rebuild into a tyrannical dystopia. What is Kamala's chant? "A future unburdened by the past". Understand how bad this is, they consider us their cattle.

      1. The Central Scrutinizer Silver badge

        Re: Survailance without enforcement

        You really are quite unhinged.

      2. Someone Else Silver badge

        Re: Survailance without enforcement

        I suppose it is proper that you post behind the veil of "Anonymous Coward". Using your real handle might tip off the good folks at Bellevue as to where their latest escapee might be hiding....

  4. Howard Sway Silver badge

    Citizens will be on their best behavior because we're constantly recording and reporting

    Let's mandate this constant recording and reporting for billionaire tech bros too. Everything they do 24 hours a day, with an "AI" deciding whether they've done anything wrong. Just to watch how suddenly less keen on the idea they become.

    1. cyberdemon Silver badge
      Black Helicopters

      Re: Citizens will be on their best behavior because we're constantly recording and reporting

      Except of course, that they have the keys to erase the records of whatever the AI flagged up about themselves...

  5. mark l 2 Silver badge

    Its amazing how so out of touch these tech bros are with reality. Its almost like hes just finished reading 1984 and saw it as some sort of inspirational guide book for our future.

    1. klh

      Not taking away from the general point, I wouldn't call an 80yo fart a "tech bro".

      More like a tech dinosaur trying to earn as much as he can at the cost of a future he's not going to live anyway.

      1. ecofeco Silver badge

        He's an OG tech bro.

  6. IGotOut Silver badge

    The more I read shit like this ..

    ...the more I want to rebel and burn everything to the ground.

    I've already dumped much of the pointless tech, and the stuff I still use, is used far less.

  7. The Central Scrutinizer Silver badge

    What sort of twisted mind comes up with this dystopian horror show?

    What ever happened to leaving people alone to go about their perfectly legal business?

    The tech bros are clearly well out of control, to put it mildly.

    No no and no

    1. AdamWill

      Ellison isn't a tech bro, because even the tech bros hate him.

    2. ChoHag Silver badge

      > What sort of twisted mind comes up with this dystopian horror show?

      Never make the mistake of anthropomorphising Larry Ellison.

  8. jake Silver badge

    The Stasi ...

    ... would have loved this chump's rhetoric.

    1. Jonathan Richards 1 Silver badge
      Black Helicopters

      Re: The Stasi ...

      I guess everyone here has read The Circle (see review of the movie version on El Reg). The revulsion that the novel produced in me made it impossible for me to watch the movie. I got a bit of vomit in the back of my mouth just now when reading about this Ellison farrago.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Time to get rid of arses like these! Rise up and REMOVE THEM ALL FROM POWER! 2nd Amendment goes here! Rise UP and REBEL against ALL governments and authoritarian arses! REMOVE THEM PERIOD!!! FOREVER FORM OUR LIVES! Dump them ALL onto some pacific island where they can fight the sharks and Komodo dragons for food and their lives!

    V

    1. SJohnson

      It'll never happen.

      You'll never get rid of morons like this because other morons will STILL continue to do business with them. Oracle has been rotten to the core for decades and they're still there even though everyone knows they're getting screwed. Clearly they like it.

      Larry boy just thinks he's smart and relevant. He's neither in reality but of course he's running a business that for some reason people won't tell to fsck off.

  10. AdamWill

    First place they should install one is in the office of his plastic surgeon, cos some crimes have certainly been committed there.

  11. Winkypop Silver badge
    Big Brother

    THX1138

    1984

    Logan’s Run

    1. jake Silver badge

      Re: THX1138

      Funny you should mention THX1138 ... BART is celebrating its 50th birthday today.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    False hope?

    I'm hoping he is giving an undercover warning of what will happen if we don't block this control mania.

    After all, what counts is who makes the rules that AI polices. History and experience tells us we can't trust the majority of those who seek power. The founding fathers tried to guard against that but it's being undone. Many cry but it keeps us safe yet everyone has a point when they will sacrifice safety for freedom. I fear many will not realise what they have let in until too late and then be shocked when they infringe a minor law and receive disproportionate penalty.

    1. Antipode77

      Re: False hope?

      The question as always is : Who guards the guardians ?

      Suspect this problem will never be solved.

  13. Tubz Silver badge
    Big Brother

    Dangerous needs To Be Stopped NOW !!

    Mass surveillance of the lawful for the tiny minority of criminals is a step too far, mistakes and racial bias bound to happen. Bad enough now with the amount of CCTV. May happen in repressive regimes like China, Russia and USA but not in the EU or UK thankfully.

    1. nijam Silver badge

      Re: Dangerous needs To Be Stopped NOW !!

      > ... not in the ... UK thankfully.

      Dream on.

  14. Hig Hurtenflurst
    Big Brother

    I for one...

    welcome our new excretion monitoring overlords.

    All hail Our Glorious Leader Larry, Oracle Chief Toilet Observer!

    (Not like we even live on Bethselamin)

  15. Bebu
    Windows

    Progress is...

    natural selection applied to "bad behaviour."

    This nong's customary complete lack of insight appears to want to retain the world's current dysfunction in perpetuity.

    Those who challenge the prevailing status quo are invariably labelled trouble makers and their activities "bad behaviour" or worse.

    I am certain the framing of the US Constitution was considered bad behaviour by George III and with hindsight I am not entirely sure that he would have been mistaken.

    One doesn't need omniscence to discern that the original, creative and inventive individuals who over the millenia have given us our culture and civilisation weren't particularly notable for their "best behaviour."

    You would think this chap would be more circumspect in his pronouncements, given were he to turn up to an audition for the role of Mephistopheles would be the automatic choice.

    Most of the Vulturati from their bitter experience in dealing with Oracle already know their need for very long spoon.

    1. JacobZ

      Re: Progress is...

      In fairness, the US constitution was originally formulated to cement the power of land-holding white men and entrench slavery.

      Any good that has come from it is a result of very hard work, an extremely bloody civil war, and decades of civil unrest to amend it or attempt to get it to apply equally. And even that is a constant battle.

      1. Stork

        Re: Progress is...

        You can also argue the applying it equally is still work in progress.

  16. Plest Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Oh look yet another billionaire ego-maniac with a surveillance and data fetish, what a surprise 'cos we simply don't have enough of those!

  17. JacobZ
    FAIL

    In Ellison's defense...

    ...

    ...

    ...

    Nope, I've got nothing.

  18. Jason Bloomberg Silver badge
    Big Brother

    No Larry - I am Big Brother

    And so is my wife.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    When reality feels like playing Deus Ex (1) in 2000 and you're thinking, surely not. The augmentations would be nice by now. That game's vision of the future has come true to an eerie extent (except I don't have augmentations yet, so if the universe is listening, that would be nice to have to somewhat offset the societal disruption and panopticon society)

  20. Groo The Wanderer

    Zieg Heil, Mein Fuhrer!

  21. Missing Semicolon Silver badge

    Nothing new here

    He just said it out loud. He probably wasn't supposed to, but such is the arrogance of our elites,it probably doesn't matter.

  22. Locomotion69 Bronze badge

    Dear AI....

    ... please provide me with the full list of Oracle products I have to get rid off.

  23. Someone Else Silver badge

    Greta Thunberg was right (still)

    This is what happens when a tech dinosaur with more money than brains goes in search of that Fairy Tale of Endless Growth.

  24. O'Reg Inalsin

    So finally, the US and China will be on an equal footing! Parity achieved. Except that the cameras will only be made in China.

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