Oxford philosopher Véliz: surveillance enables prediction enables control — how much can democracy take?
CarissaVeliz · x · 2026-08-21
Philosopher Carissa Véliz appeared on The Progress Network podcast "What Could Go Right?" to discuss AI futures and surveillance. Key points:
- "We only surveil in order to predict people's behavior, and we only predict people's behavior in order to control it. It's kind of that simple."
- With surveillance and prediction scaled to today's degree, the real question is: how much social control can liberal democracy take?
The episode also examines why we're told the AI future is inevitable when it isn't, reflecting on how tech-determinist narratives feed social anxiety.
More from AGI Musings
- AI can now outsource almost all emotional labor, commodifying the baseline of human psyche — signulll · 2026-08-21
- AI drug discovery could be the key to solving the US fiscal crisis — bittingthembits · 2026-08-21
- If AI Is So Smart, Why Can't It Make Itself Profitable? — CheckLatter1150 · 2026-08-21
- Model Nuances Don't Matter as Posthuman Transition Approaches — danfaggella · 2026-08-21
- When Your Buyer Is an AI Agent: A Shift in B2B Commerce — rseroter · 2026-08-21
- Borretti essay: automating drudgery also automates meaningful work — same complexity class — zetalyrae · 2026-08-21