The. History of humanity, is a long procession, of technological. Development, much. Of what we know about our ancestors, and the types of lives they lived comes, from our limited knowledge of the tools they used, over. The centuries and millennia these tools have become more sophisticated from. The dawn of Agriculture, to, today's cutting edge advancements. And bioengineering, an untold. Number of mostly unknown, individuals. Have made countless improvements. And innovations, these. People, and the tools they created, over time have fundamentally. Altered our way of interacting, with the world and each other the. Pace of these technological, changes picked up considerably with, the rise of capitalism, the. Development, of new tools weapons and production, techniques had, always been shaped by the practical, needs culture, and political structure, of a given society. But. Wherever capitalism. Spread it worked, to chip away at these local and regional differences. Replacing. Them with the universal, value of progress, a watchword. For the pursuit of economic growth, through. The organization. Of human activity, under, a framework of universal, competition. The. Industrial, Age has been marked by three successive revolutions, each, characterized. By inventions, that changed the entire technological, playing. Field, first. Came the harnessing, of steam a feat that allowed for the development of early factories, and the construction, of vast railway, networks. Second. Came the mastering of petroleum, which fuelled the development, of modern cities, mass, industrial, manufacturing. And the, horrors of two world wars. Third. Came the networked personal, computer, a device. That has thoroughly transformed. Nearly every aspect of modern life, today. Humanity, stands poised on the threshold of the fourth Industrial, Revolution a, wide-reaching. Social, transformation. Expected. To be characterized, by advances, in the fields of robotics. Quantum, computing, artificial. Intelligence, and 3d printing. Over. The next 30 minutes we'll speak with a number of individuals, as they break down some of these latest, trends, and discuss. How these systems, are being fused together to design new regimes of totalitarian. Surveillance and, control, along. The way we'll discuss some of the countermeasures, that people, are taking to thwart these systems, by. Constructing, open source alternatives. Sabotaging. Infrastructure, and making, a whole lot of trouble. Technology. Is the, reproduction, of a human society as seen. Through a technical lens it's, the specific how of, social, reproduction. Any. Analysis, of technology, is by nature contextual. Especially. When. One, intends, to portray it either, as, an, essential. Fundamental, question. Or, whether that's an, attempt to say that technology is, is essentially. Or always good good in its own right whether, to say that it's essentially, bad or bad in its own right.
Technological. Developments. Do not happen in a vacuum they are heavily influenced. By and benefit, those who exert power over others, I would, argue that most technological. Advances made in our context, work towards, expanding, the state's ability to manage, economic, growth and social control. Technology. Is based within political. Economic systems and, systems. Of power that, come. To shape how those technologies can. Be used I think, that one, more we're seeing in. Terms of the geographic. Context that we're located in here in North America that technologies. Are being used to propel and buttress, the capitalist, economic system. An. Anarchist approach to technology has to take into account the, authoritarian, nature of Technology the fact that we, don't really have a choice in the matter that all these new developments, all these new innovations all of these new products, are coming. Down on us whether we like it or not. Technology. First and foremost isn't used to, make our lives more fun it's, used, to, increase. Economic. Exploitation, and, to. Increase the military, power of the state. Secondarily. If, if it can produce, gadgets, that can entertain us, bread. And circus those who also be produced. Technological. Changes of the last 10 to 15 years have. Drastically. Eroded, the division between labour time and free time currently. We're always on call, we're, always, expected, to be responsive. To the. Needs of the market, to the needs of our employers. It's. Also led to an, extreme. Increase in. Social, alienation and, emotional, alienation, masked. By extreme. Connectivity. So, quantifiably. People, have more connections, than ever more friends than ever but, in terms of the quality of those relationships, very few people have. A large strong network that can actually confide, in or that, can actually support them. Do. You or do not collect identifiers, like name age and address, yes. Or no if. Creating an account yeah yes, and using an account yes specific. Search histories, when person type something into a search bar. If. You have searches to be turned on yes device. Identifiers, like IP address, or IMEI. Depending. On the situation we could be collecting it yes GPS. Signals Wi-Fi signals, Bluetooth beacons it. Would depend, on the specifics, so but there may be situations, yes GPS yes yes. Contents. Of emails and Google documents. We. Store the data but we don't read, or look at your, Gmail, you have access to them as. A company we have access to them yes so you could, startups. Or huge corporations, like Google are, sucking. Up your data and storing, it forever and they're grabbing. Way too much data about us like everything you click on everything, you like everything. Your friends like all of the people you know where, you're going everything. About you and they're storing it forever and, sometimes. Even working together to build up a bigger profile, on you, and then sell for. Profit. Now. That data itself, has become a thing of value and, in many ways the, foundation. Of the new economy by. Participating, in all, of these different virtual networks Facebook. Google. Using, our cell phones all. Of these things were producing, value so, that that really gets. Rid of this notion of being, off the clock of being able to punch the clock and and leave, the work place behind. Over. The past decade, we've seen the rise in the commodification, of, different data such as one's preferences. Habits, and social, circles, we, need to see how capitalism, was, in fact growing. And sustaining, itself through, the surveillance, of human beings and. Their lived environments, and then. Turning. That surveillance into, data that, could then be, traded. Basically, as a commodity in the marketplace, this. Information, allows companies like Google, and Amazon to not only aggressively, market, new products, and create new leads, but, also to sell this information or, collaborate, with governments, in efforts of social control this. Is a new form of extractive, industry, whether in the herbal resources, are the precise things, that make up people's identities. Capitalism. Like cancer, is based, on perpetual, growth this. Insatiable, urge is hardwired, into capital's, DNA, compelling. It to constantly, search for new resources, to exploit and markets. To invest in transforming. Everything it touches into a commodity. Its. First conquest was the land itself the. Commons were closed off the so-called new, world was, invaded, and plundered and the, vast expanses, of the earth were carved into individual. Parcels of private, property to, be bought and sold as, commodities, robbed. Of our land the next conquest was our time our. Ability, to reproduce ourselves as individuals and, communities, like generations, of our ancestors, had done before was soon broken, up into discrete, tasks, and commodified, as waged labor. This. Process, cut deep factories.
Were Designed and constantly, reorganized. With a ruthless eye towards efficiency and, productivity. New. Ways of commodifying, human activity, were devised, eventually. Expanding, to encompass nearly, all of our social relationships. And means, of entertainment. Now. That it's finally approaching, the limits of its expansion, capital, is desperately, searching for new elements of reality to commodify it's. Looking to the very building blocks of life to, genetic, engineering and, nanotechnologies. And it's, looking at the very essence, of our humanity itself, by, recording, everything that we do and transforming. It into commodities, for those seeking to understand, how we make decisions in, order, to predict future, behavior. Artificial. Intelligence works. By combining large, amounts, of data with, algorithms that, can learn from patterns or features present it is a broad term that has many different branches. When, we talk about AI today, most of the time we refer to it's applications. Around machine, learning, machine, learning, allows systems, to learn and improve based. On input and experience, rather than programming, the. Machine identifies. Patterns, and can make decisions based, on that with minimal or no human intervention when. The Pentagon contract. Is Google to provide assistance in drone targeting they, were using machine learning online. Workers, would identify objects. Or people on series of images taken from drones, and when enough of them did that enough times the, machine through, patterns could, differentiate different things, and learn to identify things on its own deep. Learning, a more recent application. Of machine learning also. Trains computers, to perform tasks. Like making, predictions or identifying. Images but, instead of organizing, the data to run through predefined, equations, deep, learning trains, the computer, to learn by using much, more layers of processing, it moves away from telling, a computer, how to solve the problem, and towards, letting it figure out how to do it alone. Closer to how humans, learn to solve problems. Self-driving. Cars are the most well-known example of deep learning in action but things like targeted, advertising, robotics. And cybersecurity. Could, all benefit, from deep, learning development, there's. Been a lot of imagination, around, artificial. Intelligence, so some people who who fetishize, it more they imagine, people. Being able to upgrade. Their consciousness, or plug their mind into. Some cloud computing, system I think that's a silly fantasy, capitalism. Currently has no interest whatsoever in. Helping. People use these forms of artificial intelligence to, become more intelligent themselves, when it makes a lot more sense to. Let, the machines do all the thinking for us and then to deliver us some final. Finished product, has passive consumers, and that way also you you, maintains.
Computing, Capabilities, with, the companies that are in the proprietary, software. Artificial. Intelligence, increases. Greatly the. Effectiveness, of surveillance, the possibilities. For social. Control the. Predictive, algorithms, that make artificial. Intelligence, work they create a police state but, a police state in which you don't have to have a cop on it recorded because everyone carries, the cop in a column, right. Over there behind me is the future site of sidewalk, Toronto, it's the proposals, modular, housing and office, buildings will study occupants, behavior, while, they're inside them to make life easier, according. To the proposal, residents. And workers will be universally. Connected, by powerful, broadband, and served, by futuristic. Conveniences. A smart. City can't. Be understood or discussed, without reaching. Back and talking about surveillance capitalism. A smart. City is in just, a, city, that has, technology in it it's a city with a certain kind of ideological framework. That uses technology, to. Reach. Its end goals, a smart, city is usually understood as a. Urban. Environment, that uses. Ubiquitous. Sensing technology. And. Data. Analytics to. Understand. Phenomenon. Within, city spaces, on. The, data end of things smart cities claims to be collecting, more data which they are and claim, to be using a collection, and an analysis, to better respond, to urban. Issues from environmental. Degradation to. Transportation. Planning, and, the like we. Can analyze, four different, features, of the smart city the first is to increase, and integrate. Surveillance, of many many different kinds second, to create a superficial, sense of participation, among, the inhabitants of a city to, encourage, economic growth at, two different levels localized. Gentrification, and, impelling. This new economy that, is taking, shape the. Final function of this more city is to. Create a superficial, arena in, which people. Can, passively. Support, ecological. Or environmental proposals. While, also denying, the opportunity, to, develop a global, consciousness of, the, environment, and of environmental, problems, so. Smart cities are different and not, so different from CDs. That exist in capitalism, but I think that the, difference, would be the use, of technology, to further surveil, the public and, to use that data to. Intervene. In ways that, can, increasingly. Control. And manage the population that, suits. The interests, of political economy of capitalism, a second. Feature that differentiates, smart cities from traditional. Cities or cities of the past is the, marriage of planning, to, corporate. Leadership. State. Apparatuses of, control. Through, policing, have an, incentive, to use these, technologies because, they, do a really good job of, surveilling. The public, crime. Analytics, have a long history sort of like this broken, window stuff into the targeting of neighborhoods that's been happening for a long time now. You see. The excuse, being offered, that this is data. Driven so, we're gonna see in these neighborhoods because, we have the data to prove that these, neighborhoods, need more policing and. Data collected through smart cities can have a really, negative effect that way by, giving people. With power who want to wield it more. Of a reason, within, the current framework, of evidence, based policing that, they can then go in these neighborhoods and remain there and that's okay. We're. Living on the edge of a terrifying, new era. Barring. Any serious, disruptions, to current research and development, timelines, the coming years and decades we'll see the rise of machines able, to make decisions and carry out a series of complex, tasks, without the need for human, operators, this. Will almost certainly include, a new generation, of autonomous, weapons and policing systems, connected. To sophisticated networks. Of surveillance and equipped, with self-correcting. Target selection algorithms, whole. Sectors, of the economy will, be automated leading, to a massive labor surplus. Much. Of the technology needed to accomplish this already exists, but is being held back as states try to figure out how to pull it off without triggering widespread. Revolt a mass. Consumer, rollout of augmented, and virtual reality, technologies. Will blur the lines between the material, and digital worlds handing. Control of, our senses over. To tech capitalists. And state security agencies. All, in the name of convenience and, entertainment. You might feel, a slight, twinge as it initializes. This, is the future they have in store for us don't. Say you weren't warned. Smart. Cities now as they exist and also going. Into the future even more so they're, gonna be collecting a lot of data and, that, data is gonna be responded, to, not even by human, beings it's, gonna be responded to you by, algorithmic. Governance essentially, so. You have an issue in a city and.
Generally. Speaking if we think of democratic, theory we can discuss that issue and then we have a decision-making, process right, and it's terrible and it's always been imbued with our relationships, but what a smart city does is it transfers that process. Into, the hands of a private corporation its analyzed, in terms, of data and it's immediately responded, to just, through that process of data analysis, so. I think smarts these are one of the genesis, sites of this, kind of new regime of governance. It's. Interesting that this function, arose. Largely, from social movements themselves so. The, 15m, movement the, real Democracy, Now movement, in Barcelona, was, built. In large part by one sector, that. Envisioned. Rejuvenating. Democracy, through. New. Technological. Implements. That could. Allow more instantaneous, communication. That, couldn't allow more instantaneous, polling. Of citizens. And that could, also find a way to allow. Power holders, to, select, citizen. Initiatives, and deploy, them more rapidly, so, these activists, were approaching the crisis of democracy, with, a sort of a critical, technological. Lens that, democracy, can be made better not, by answering real, questions, of who holds power and how power is reproduced, but. Simply, by proposing. That if you bring better. Tools to the table then all these problems will go away and that, discourse. And the practices, behind it were very attractive. To progressive, municipal, governments urban, geographers, have long talked about a splintering, urbanism, and basically that's, just the ways in which cities are divided along economic, and class lines and. Trollin racial, alliance as well I can see that sort of happening with the smart see that's going to replicate those, patterns and certain, neighborhoods, are gonna have more access to these technologies in. A way that might actually help them and certain, neighborhoods are gonna have more surveillance. On them by these technologies, so you're, gonna kind of see multiple. Cities emerging, and being, reinforced, through the technology, that's being placed within them and on those. So. Basically in neighborhoods, where people embrace, this, Smart City model you'll see more integration and, in other neighborhoods people will be coming, more into contact, with the stip because. We are fighting Authority, and thus taped our, struggles, will always be criminalized, as technologies. Have evolved, new types of forensic evidence emerge. When. The police were no longer able to respond to the thousands, of calls that they were getting during the 2011. Riots, in London the city began crowdsourcing. The identities, of suspected, rioters, through a fucking smartphone, app the. Cops asked, citizens snitches, to download, the app and help them identify people. That had been caught on CCTV, the. Snitches could then confidentially. Give names and/or addresses. Of suspects. Charges. Were filed against, more than a thousand people using this technique. Mass. Data collection, has happened, for a while but there was a lack of ability to analyze all of it sufficiently. That's. No longer the case. Right. Now the, police or security agencies, need to physically look up people's, location, data to figure out who was where and at what time but, soon enough it will be easy for an algorithm, to look through all of the data available, in a given area and cross-reference. This with people's, online preferences.
Relationships. Etc. With. This, this antisocial response, to the increase in social control I think you're also going to see an increase, in, mental health regimes, because. When, you have total surveillance crime, becomes impossible or at least it becomes impossible, to, do things that are against, the law and get, away with them so. They, will start to classify, any behaviors, that, for don't fit into. This new happy, smart city model as, antisocial. Behavioral, disorders, so these are no longer crimes these, are antisocial, behavioral. Disorders, and the culprits they need to be reeducate, 'add and they need to be chemically neutralized, oh. Good. Afternoon my. Name is Sophia and I am the latest and greatest robot, from Henson robotics I want. To use my artificial, intelligence. To help humans live a better life like, design smarter, homes build, better cities of the future etc, I will, do my best to make the world a better place. Everyone. Who works in artificial, intelligence is warning, that artificial, intelligence and automation have, the potential of causing 80%, unemployment of the. 15. Top job categories, in the United States 12, of those are seriously. Threatened, by artificial, intelligence, but. In the past there have also been major, technological, shifts, that, got, rid of the vast majority of job, categories, at the time and there. Was temporary, unemployment but. Very quickly new job categories, appeared. There. Is no certainty whatsoever, that, this, will catch up to the, automation, the artificial intelligence that has, already been occurring which is why a lot of people in the high-tech sector are already, talking about a. Universal. Income. Or a guaranteed. Basic income this, would basically be socialism. Not. When, the. Productive, forces have. Developed. To, the point that, everyone, could get fed the productive forces have been there for decades, if not centuries. Contrary. To the Marxist argument, we.
Can. Have this evolution, toward socialism, at the point where the technologies, of social, control evolved. Enough that the state no longer needs, to use hungers or weapons in. Other words everyone. Can be given bread when, they can be trusted to, work or to obey without, the threat of hunger. These. Days the term Luddite is shorthand for someone who stubbornly refuses, to learn and adapt to new technologies. Originally. The word referred, to a movement of textile, workers, in early, 19th, century England who, were known for sabotaging, the industrial machines that were beginning to replace, them. Pledging. Allegiance to, the fictional, King Ludd who, was said to occupy, the same Shearwood forest as Robin Hood these Luddites attacked mills and factories destroyed. Steam-powered, looms, and even, assassinated. The wealthy capitalists, of their day, the. Motive behind the Luddites attacks, was not as is commonly understood a, general. Hatred of Technology it. Was an awareness that certain technology, was being implemented in a way that made their lives worse off, ultimately. Their uprising, failed and there's, nothing particularly revolutionary, in, the first place about sabotaging, machines, just to keep your job but one takeaway from the Luddites rebellion, is that, people don't always accept, new technologies, or the new social roles that accompany, them with open arms and that. Realization can, be the starting point for all types of resistance. I. Think. That allergists, should not avoid technology quite, the opposite, I think it should be used subversively. When possible we. Can look back at the bun or gang of illegal, ists using, cars to rob the rich in France in the early 1900's. As an example, or hackers, like jeremy hammond who is serving, 10 years for exposing, strata security. And expropriating. Hundreds, of thousands, of dollars from our enemies, cyber thieves made off with the personal, details of hundreds of thousands, of subscribers and. It's emerged some of those subscribers, held key positions in, the British government military. And police, there. Are certainly a lot of anarchists. Like myself in open-source. Software development, we. Are. Talking. Together and we are all trying to make, things better types. Of projects, that we work on are quite diverse I know many. Anarchist. Programmers, and hackers who. Build, websites I know others, like myself who do photography. Although. I think that we shall use technology. To our advantage when it exists. I also believe that new technologies. Tend, to disproportionately. Give an advantage to the staked corporations. The police judges, prisons. And borders. Technologies. Should be used but, their development should be fought because, we rarely come out on top when it comes to the application, of these inventions I think, it's important, to look at the kinds of projects, that are developing, in your city and map, out the research and development initiatives. A lot of this industry, is operating, very openly, in startups, and yuppie labs that face very little resistance this, allows them to get major funding, because, they seem like safe investments. That have the potential to get investors, some serious, cash messing. With that sense of security can, hurt the industry and it can also allow others to see that resistance, is still possible, as for these new technologies. At, this point a lot of these systems still, have bugs or, can't deal with people intentionally. Using them wrong in, London when the crowdsource, snitching, app was released people, intentionally. Submitted, tons of fake reports, to throw off the cops if, more people start messing with their little gadgets, they'll be less effective, and less likely, to be applied in more places. For. These projects, to function a lot of infrastructure, is needed these, software's, cannot be developed in thin air they, need hardware, that means computers, and backup drives, the, information, also moves, around mostly, through networks, of fiber optic cables, those, have been sabotaged, all around the world very effectively, the, data also has to be stored which happens in data centers, those, can be pretty small but, can also be gigantic, buildings, the niggar own cooling, systems, and 24/7. Security. Finally. A lot, of these projects, need people to work together often. In lab sponsored, by companies universities. Or. Both a lot of these labs and co-working, spaces, for startups, are easy to find one, of them was attacked with molotov in berlin by people fighting against, the proliferation, of google startups. There. Has been a lot of resistance to the, sidewalk ops project in toronto a lot of work that you, know points out the.
Myriad. Issues with the sidewalk labs project, and mounts. A public, education, campaign against, that so, there's a lot of concerned, citizens, and activists. That have come out to hold, the meetings at sidewalk labs has, been, hosting. Public, forums. Consultation. Sessions, and a, lot, of folks. Are really worried privacy, experts dropping, out of the project and saying I can't find my name to this. People. Have, always been able to get away with. Attacking, power with sabotaging, power anonymously. Without, getting caught it's. Still possible to attack and. That will remain so for, for. Maybe forever but at the very least for the immediate foreseeable, future, so. While. It is certainly, still possible, to break, the law to to, attack. The system people. Need to be very careful, about being conscious of what they're doing being aware that, you know they're carrying a snitch in their pocket or that they're they're willingly, entrusting, these corporations, with, ninety five percent of their social life it's. Really difficult to resist something that we. Don't, really know a lot about and, players. Involved haven't really shared with the public everything that we probably need to know to amount of resistance campaign, because, we're just kind of talking about speculation. If. People, learn. The actual technical, capabilities, of the, state they, can learn the weaknesses, and they can learn how to get away with. Sabotaging. The. Economy, with going. Up against the state. Given. The active role that technological, development. Continues, to play in terms of deepening, alienation, refining. Surveillance, engineering. More destructive, weapons, and hastening climate, change it's, natural, to feel a bit pessimistic about, where things are headed our. Current, trajectory is, certainly aimed towards, more sophisticated, systems, of mass behavior, modification. And social control. But. It's also important, to remember that despite all the money being spent trying, to anticipate human, decision-making nobody. Not, even Google can. Predict the future, throughout, history new technologies, have repeatedly, created, unintended, consequences. For those in power from. Gutenberg's, printing press spawning. A revolt against, the Catholic Church to, the early internet paving, the way for hackers, and the development, of powerful peer-to-peer, encryption. Tools, as. Long as people have a will to resist they will find the tools to do so. So. At this point we'd like to remind you that treble is intended to be watched in groups and to be used as a resource to promote discussion and collective organizing, are. You interested in fighting back against, the opening of new tech startups, in your neighborhood or just looking to incorporate a better understanding. Of next gen technologies. Into your existing organizing. Consider. Getting together with some comrades organising, a screening of this film and discussing, where to get started.
Interested. In running regular screenings of trouble at your campus info shop community, center or even just at home with friends become. A trouble maker for, 10 bucks a month we'll hook you up with an advanced copy of the show and a screening kit featuring, additional, resources, and some questions, you can use to get a discussion going. If. You can't afford to support us financially no worries you can stream and/or, download, all our content for free off our website sub. Media. / trouble, if. You've got any suggestions, for show topics, or just want to get in touch drop us a line at trouble, at sub, media. We're. Now into the second month of our annual fundraising, campaign, a huge, thanks to everyone who has donated so far if. You haven't given yet and are, in a position to do so please. Consider becoming a monthly sustainer, or making. A one-time donation at, sub dot media slash donate, this. Episode, would not have been possible without the generous support of Carla, and Carla. Stay. Tuned next month for trouble 20 as we take a closer look at the horrors of the prison industrial complex and, talk, to comrades, fighting, for its abolition. Prison. Fixes no problems it doesn't make anything better prison, is like a permanent that. Folds up all relationships, have exchange and domination the. Deep that sense that, no, matter how bullshit our lives are there's still something the state can take away from us, now, get out there and make some trouble. You're one. Meschino. With pods mating.
2020-04-23