AI Cameras Took Over One Small American Town. Now They're Everywhere

[justaprogressive]

Spread across four computer monitors arranged in a grid, a blue and green interface shows the location of more than 50 different surveillance cameras. Ordinarily, these cameras and others like them might be disparate, their feeds only available to their respective owners: a business, a government building, a resident and their doorbell camera. But the screens, overlooking a pair of long conference tables, bring them all together at once, allowing law enforcement to tap into cameras owned by different entities around the entire town all at once.

This is a demonstration of Fusus, an AI-powered system that is rapidly springing up across small town America and major cities alike. Fusus’ product not only funnels live feeds from usually siloed cameras into one central location, but also adds the ability to scan for people wearing certain clothes, carrying a particular bag, or look for a certain vehicle.

404 Media has obtained a cache of internal emails, presentations, memos, photos, and more which provide insight into how Fusus teams up with police departments to sell its surveillance technology. All around the country, city councils are debating whether they want to have a system that qualitatively changes what surveillance cameras mean for a town’s residents and public agencies. While many have adopted Fusus, others have pushed back, and refused to have the hardware and software installed in their neighborhoods.
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Do you know anything else about Fusus? I would love to hear from you. Using a non-work device, you can message me securely on Signal at [phone]. Otherwise, send me an email at [e-mail].

In some ways, Fusus is deploying smart camera technology that historically has been used in places like South Africa, where experts warned about it creating an ever present blanket of surveillance. Now, tech with some of the same capabilities is being used across small town America.

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[FalloutShelter]

1. Remember the 1998 Tony Scott movie Enemy of the State?

It was prophetic. AI will destroy the right to privacy.
We will be surveilled 24/7.

[UpInArms]

2. My very first thought

Enemy of the State … coming to you in real time

Who will monitor the monitors?

[CrispyQ]

3. Don't blame AI. This is on us. All of us.

We traded our privacy for convenience. The convenience of catching speeders in school zones. The convenience of online banking. The convenience of having Ring monitor our property.

We never questioned where catching speeders at schools would lead, we just happily accepted the convenience it offered. A lot of the world's problems can be distilled down to humans looking for an easier way of life. And I'm just as guilty as anyone. I love convenience. C'est la vie.

[DBoon]

4. relevant quote

“The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was, of course, no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment.”

- George Orwell, '1984'.

[justaprogressive]

5. or

Thus, "Justice" had been reduced by the Hegemony to an automatic reflex arc.
An Eye continuously fed observations into the nearest Guardian and the Guardian
continuously checked the data against its list of Permitted Actions. It was said
that if any action, no matter how trivial, proved to be Unpermitted, a signal automatically
went to the Beam below the Eye that had reported it. The lead plug was blown out, and
the area filled with deadly radiation. The reaction time of the system was under one second.

Norman Spinrad Agent of Chaos