Privacy

I agree there's a distinction between social media and the surveillance technology that has formed around that social media.

Everyone needs to feel a sense of belonging, and there are some times obstacles of time and distance that keep people in remote locations from "finding their people". I believe this speaks to the issue of a basic need, and whether that leads to toxicity or "bad crowds" is a separate issue entirely.

What should be a subject of targeted discussion is the surveillance economy that has built around some social media platforms. Given the high economic value that this surveillance represents, the public will find it difficult to discuss this subject without heavy lobbying. But, given this value, there's no scenario where society will somehow toss all social media with all surveillance. Hence, there's also a strong suspicion that identifying children and banning them from social media will only contribute and improve the surveillance.

Also, to put on my tin foil hat, while the promise of "AI" has been lauded on every possible channel of communication, there's very little actual impact in the present. When talking heads encourage the public to keep the faith, and simply expand the timeline for when AI can provide real "game changing" effect, I'd offer the simple counter: We'll sooner see the world burn all the water and energy in the world before we see a proper AI product.

That's why I suspect more likely that the data centres that are constructed today are not for the AI of tomorrow, but rather the surveillance economy of today. As we've seen from Israel's occupation of Palestine, proper control of the travel of people and information requires huge collections of data. Those American Flock cameras and all those other data points have to be stored, accessed, and reviewed somewhere and by someone.

One concern is that the "data centre" is not an AI innovation. Similar to the surveillance economy itself, the data centre is not a revolution - it's an evolution of American and Israeli oppression.