I keep wondering if there’s some kind of positive correlation between prestige of an institution and level of immaturity and fragility of their employees.
Look, I’m not trying to be pro-surveillance state or whatever, but in what universe is a handful of cameras (less than 10 per building) in a publicly accessible space on a private university unusual or alarming?
I thought every university had this, but I guess I’m now learning that my university wasn’t prestigious enough to be exempted from reality.
My high school also had cameras. Isn’t that rather typical?
Keep in mind that pretty much 100% of schools this size have assaults take place every single year on school grounds, in a country where school shootings happen on a literal weekly basis.
Speaking of the supposed cost waste of these cameras: I would be surprised the university can get reasonably priced insurance without them.
> Look, I’m not trying to be pro-surveillance state or whatever
Kinda sounds like you are, though.
> but in what universe is a handful of cameras (less than 10 per building)
The article notes 6-7 cameras per floor of one particular building. I'm not sure of the size of each floor of that particular building, so 6-7 cameras per floor may cover very little space, or it may cover a lot. That also says nothing about the coverage in other buildings. Larger buildings probably got more cameras.
Either way, often these sorts of things are set up in phases, with higher concentrations of cameras added later, after the system proves itself as useful.
> My high school also had cameras. Isn’t that rather typical?
There's a big difference between your bog-standard security camera that just records footage to a hard drive somewhere, and these cameras, that send live feeds to an AI company, where the video is presumably automatically analyzed and indexed to allow administrators to effortlessly track people's movements. The AI company may (now or in the future) offer real-time alerts of "suspicious activity", which as we all should know by now probably will have a significant false-positive rate. (But cops will treat alerts as gospel without doing any critical thinking.)
> My high school also had cameras. Isn’t that rather typical?
Security cameras are incredibly typical. Having cameras that record _audio_ are not, and having cameras whose audio and video recordings are handed over to an AI company is _absolutely_ not typical.
> in what universe is a handful of cameras (less than 10 per building) in a publicly accessible space on a private university unusual or alarming?
> My high school also had cameras. Isn’t that rather typical?
I don't think such a handful of cameras means the same thing today as it meant in e.g. the 00s. Lots of things have changed, the government, the politics, the culture, the technical possibilities.
When the data ends up inevitably in the state’s hands (almost certainly thanks to the AI company they’re contracting), it is 100% part of the surveillance state. Same reason telecom providers and Big Tech generally is part of the surveillance state; they’ll just hand over data, no questions asked, no warrants provided.
MIT has a police force, so in the way that matters for this particular topic, yes, they are a state.
Aside from that, the lines are very blurred these days, as the state often ends up gaining regular, easy access to systems such as this.
(Regardless, it's a bit in bad faith to bring up surveillance-state scenarios, and then, when called on it, claim that it doesn't matter because it technically doesn't apply to the organization at hand. Even though it does in the ways that matter.)
A charitable read of this article isn't even necessary to understand the point of this is the opposite of the poster you replied to. Basic discernment at most.
Not sure there's a more charitable read on "I don't want to be pro-surveillance, but [bunch of reasons why I think this is fine and that surveillance should be and has been normalized]".
If you fail to read the article you might not realize it's being sarcastic.
https://hacks.mit.edu/Hacks/
Has any of this surveillance bullshit reduced the number of incidents that occurred where they have been installed? I find it terrifying.
I keep wondering if there’s some kind of positive correlation between prestige of an institution and level of immaturity and fragility of their employees.
Look, I’m not trying to be pro-surveillance state or whatever, but in what universe is a handful of cameras (less than 10 per building) in a publicly accessible space on a private university unusual or alarming?
I thought every university had this, but I guess I’m now learning that my university wasn’t prestigious enough to be exempted from reality.
My high school also had cameras. Isn’t that rather typical?
Keep in mind that pretty much 100% of schools this size have assaults take place every single year on school grounds, in a country where school shootings happen on a literal weekly basis.
Speaking of the supposed cost waste of these cameras: I would be surprised the university can get reasonably priced insurance without them.
> Look, I’m not trying to be pro-surveillance state or whatever
Kinda sounds like you are, though.
> but in what universe is a handful of cameras (less than 10 per building)
The article notes 6-7 cameras per floor of one particular building. I'm not sure of the size of each floor of that particular building, so 6-7 cameras per floor may cover very little space, or it may cover a lot. That also says nothing about the coverage in other buildings. Larger buildings probably got more cameras.
Either way, often these sorts of things are set up in phases, with higher concentrations of cameras added later, after the system proves itself as useful.
> My high school also had cameras. Isn’t that rather typical?
There's a big difference between your bog-standard security camera that just records footage to a hard drive somewhere, and these cameras, that send live feeds to an AI company, where the video is presumably automatically analyzed and indexed to allow administrators to effortlessly track people's movements. The AI company may (now or in the future) offer real-time alerts of "suspicious activity", which as we all should know by now probably will have a significant false-positive rate. (But cops will treat alerts as gospel without doing any critical thinking.)
> My high school also had cameras. Isn’t that rather typical?
Security cameras are incredibly typical. Having cameras that record _audio_ are not, and having cameras whose audio and video recordings are handed over to an AI company is _absolutely_ not typical.
Is there any equivalent to spraying a camera with paint for audio?
> in what universe is a handful of cameras (less than 10 per building) in a publicly accessible space on a private university unusual or alarming?
> My high school also had cameras. Isn’t that rather typical?
I don't think such a handful of cameras means the same thing today as it meant in e.g. the 00s. Lots of things have changed, the government, the politics, the culture, the technical possibilities.
> Look, I’m not trying to be pro-surveillance state or whatever, but
... but why do you then go on making all pro-surveillance state arguments ?
Is MIT a state?
When the data ends up inevitably in the state’s hands (almost certainly thanks to the AI company they’re contracting), it is 100% part of the surveillance state. Same reason telecom providers and Big Tech generally is part of the surveillance state; they’ll just hand over data, no questions asked, no warrants provided.
MIT has a police force, so in the way that matters for this particular topic, yes, they are a state.
Aside from that, the lines are very blurred these days, as the state often ends up gaining regular, easy access to systems such as this.
(Regardless, it's a bit in bad faith to bring up surveillance-state scenarios, and then, when called on it, claim that it doesn't matter because it technically doesn't apply to the organization at hand. Even though it does in the ways that matter.)
They don't, did you read it? It's clearly a satirical art project exposing the bullshit.
Man I wish HN commenters could be bothered to even attempt to read each other charitably instead of this crap
A charitable read of this article isn't even necessary to understand the point of this is the opposite of the poster you replied to. Basic discernment at most.
Not sure there's a more charitable read on "I don't want to be pro-surveillance, but [bunch of reasons why I think this is fine and that surveillance should be and has been normalized]".
Yes there is. That's the point of the comment. They made their points seriously and you should engage with them seriously.
whoosh
did an AI surveillance startup write this? You gotta be kidding me
I mean the correlation is money. Rich people outraged
> My high school also had cameras. Isn’t that rather typical?
What? Absolutely not! At least not in the countries in which I went to school.