Driven by the idea that developments cannot be missed, states and tech companies are positioning themselves when it comes to AI. It is a struggle for dominance – and a debate that is strongly influenced by the fear of surveillance.
What was once a dystopian fantasy has long since become reality. In the Gaza Strip recorded Israel’s military uses facial recognition to identify suspected terrorists who walk in front of surveillance cameras or are filmed by coarse-pixel cameras in drones. Whether the software was correct doesn’t matter at first, the person concerned is in trouble. In Russia complains the already barely visible opposition, protest is no longer possible thanks to omnipresent surveillance cameras equipped with artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, in Germany, people are asking whether suspected RAF terrorist Daniela Klette could not have been found more quickly if the police had used more facial recognition.