This Week in the New Normal #113

Our successor to This Week in the Guardian, This Week in the New Normal is our weekly chart of the progress of autocracy, authoritarianism and economic restructuring around the world.

1. AI will save lives if we let it

“ChatGTP could have prevented a mass shooting event, if only we listened to automatic flags!” That’s the story. Months before the shooting allegedly carried out by trans-woman Jesse Van Rootselaar, interactions with ChatGPT were flagged up by an automatic warning system but the silly humans didn’t tell anyone.

From the Wall Street Journal:

Months before Jesse Van Rootselaar became the suspect in the mass shooting that devastated a rural town in British Columbia, Canada, OpenAI considered alerting law enforcement about her interactions with its ChatGPT chatbot, the company said.

While using ChatGPT last June, Van Rootselaar described scenarios involving gun violence over the course of several days, according to people familiar with the matter.

Her posts, flagged by an automated review system, alarmed employees at OpenAI. Internally, about a dozen staffers debated whether to take action on Van Rootselaar’s posts. Some employees interpreted Van Rootselaar’s writings as an indication of potential real-world violence, and urged leaders to alert Canadian law enforcement about her behavior, the people familiar with the matter said.

See, if only they hadn’t been so concerned about privacy and human rights and pre-crime, the police could have done something. We should just let AI automatically record all our interactions and report those it deems necessary directly to the government.

You don’t have to be a genius to read this subliminal narrative here.

2. Facial Recognition Just Keeps on Going

Fresh off facial recognition technology being deployed across The Underground by London’s Transport Police, Merseyside Police are announcing they will be deploying live facial recognition tech at the Everton-Manchester United game as part of a…

“wider policing operation designed to keep fans and the public safe”

As the match plays out, the LFR will be scanning the crowd and…

…comparing faces captured on a live camera feed against a secure, predetermined watchlist made up of individuals wanted for serious offences, subject to court orders, or who pose a risk to the public or to themselves.

Which is just lovely, isn’t it?

3. Migrant soldiers for the EU army?

Foreign Policy has got a great idea:

EU nations should offer enlisting in the military as a fast-track path to citizenship for immigrants.

Because what harm can come from a whole bunch of soldiers who are desperate not to be deported, so will follow any orders at all provided they get to stay in the country?

Or, indeed, what could go wrong with non-citizen soldiers asked to enforce martial law on a native population with whom they share no cultural or linguistic ties?

BONUS: Hilarious “experiment” of the week

The expert scientists over at The Guardian Labs want to see what it will be like living in the future when Climate Change – sorry, “global heating” – has made it all hot and stuff. To that end, they’ve put some guy in a really hot room and had him walk on a treadmill for a long time.

Turns out he gets really hot.

Earth-shattering stuff.

It’s not all bad…

Amazon-owned US supermarket Whole Foods is scrapping their “pay with palm” system after a lot of backlash. The scheme enabled Amazon account holders to add their biometrics (finger/palm prints and facial scans) that would then allow them to instantly pay at any Amazon-affiliated business.

An Amazon spokesman told the Daily Mail that “a lack of widespread adoption” had caused the program to be nixed.

Just a reminder that non-compliance works.

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All told a pretty hectic week for the new normal crowd, and we didn’t even mention Scotland’s contribution to the “all men are evil” conversation or “digital blackface”.

There’s a lot of change in the air, a lot of agendas in the works, if you see a headline, article, post or interview you think is a sign of the times, post it in the comments, email us or share it on social media and we will add it to the next edition.