(Seven-minute read)
COVID LIKE THE FLU IS A VIRUS IT MUTATES IT DOES NOT DISCRIMINATE, UNLIKE PASSPORTS WHICH ARE DISCRIMINATORY.
They should be fought against “tooth and nail.
They will become a backdoor to the rules yet to be made up, mutating into a wider digital identity scheme with the data more than likely to flow to third-parties with varying degrees of repurposing trustworthiness.
Even with the most privacy-preserving technology, the expectation is that health data will be viewed by different actors, from healthcare settings, employers, clients, police, and pubs to insurance companies, who may have different levels of experience and trustworthiness in handling personal data.
For those without a passport, they will constitute a denial of liberties that others are being granted.
Such a program could potentially bring about invidious discrimination against racial and ethnic groups and stigma against an uninfected individual fracturing the solidarity of societies so the introduction of a vaccine passport or any such document that would deem someone “immune” goes beyond just the obvious challenge of logistics.
Why?
By replicating existing inequities, the use of immunity passports would exacerbate the harm inflicted by COVID-19 on already vulnerable populations.
The choice is not between returning to a normal life versus issuing immunity passports. Instead, the choice is between periodic lockdowns, attempting to emerge from lockdowns with immunity passports, and attempting to emerge from lockdowns without immunity passports.
First, a strong presumption should be in favor of preserving people’s free movement if at all feasible.
Passports or Digital IDs will eventually be weaponized creating coercive and stigmatizing work environments and are more likely to compound than redress…structural disadvantages and…social stigmatization.
In either form they will create a perverse incentive for individuals to seek out infection or choose to fraudulently acquire passports permitting immune individuals to exercise more freedoms than those who are not immune would undermine the message that we are “all in this together”
Although we recognize the deep existing inequalities in all countries and the ways in which COVID-19 has increased the hardships for the worst off they will turn the population into products to be are traced and tracked with employees risking losing their jobs if they don’t get vaccinated.
The advantages accruing to those with immunity (and immunity passports) would persist into the future.
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Faced with a deep economic recession/ depression governments around the world are considering the use of immunity passports to allow a degree of normality to return.
It is unethical to require someone to avoid contact with others if they pose no or minimal risk of spreading the virus. I acted in the belief that I was immune.
Some have claimed that “the whole point of immunity passports is to control movement”. However, this claim is a gross mischaracterization: the point of immunity passports is to facilitate movement when it is safe to do so.
The root of the concern for many is the unknown degree to which past infection confers future immunity. Until it is understood whether or not people can be reinfected with the disease, and how long any immunity lasts, the move to issuing covid passport is premature.
For certificates or any form of passport to work internationally, they must be recognized by countries around the world.
COVID jabs certificates are readily available to creative forgers to copy.
Individuals who are immune to SARS-CoV-2 are expected to be at a vastly reduced risk of getting and transmitting the virus, and so removing their civil liberties would be unjustified.
The main argument for their issue is that it is unethical to restrict freedom unless there is a real risk to other people.
We have the technology to decide who is not a risk, we should use it.
Whether immunity passports should be used to reliably identify immune individuals it would be better to look for solutions to the inequitable distribution of resources and to tackle the upstream causes of inequality.
This same reasoning should be applied to immunity passports.
Furthermore, as some have highlighted, the advantages of COVID-19 immunity might not entrench existing inequalities in the way often assumed. We might wish to certify only those who are unlikely to transmit the virus.
The U.K., now shut out of the E.U. thanks to Brexit, is considering its own brand of immunity proof that would allow vaccinated people to go to restaurants, pubs, and—if other countries allow—the airport.
The safety-first mentality could spread into almost every area of modern life. When it does, there’s no telling where it will lead – this is murky territory that will develop into an app.
Everyone’s vaccination status is already being logged centrally by the National Immunisation Vaccination System using their NHS number. This information could be easily linked with an app.
Will, there use be legal or illegal?
That’s the crucial, still unanswered question.
Unless such discrimination is ruled out under the law, we can expect more of it.
The moral quandary is the same: Is vaccine ID a harmless tool that creates a safer society — or a sudden expansion of a surveillance state?
God forbid if I am ever asked to produce my ID card as evidence that I am who I say I am. I will take that card out of my wallet and physically eat it in the presence of whatever emanation of the state has demanded that I produce it.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.
Basically, we’re entering the era of machines controlling everything.
If we want to create new different societies with human dignity for all we need to do something about it.
The difficulty of predicting the future is not just a cliche, it’s a basic fact of our existence. Part of the hypothesis of Singularity is that this difficulty is just going to get worse and worse. Yes, creating AGI ( Artificial General Intelligence) is a big and difficult goal, but according to known science, it is almost surely an achievable one.
However, there are sound though not absolutely confident arguments that it may well be achievable within our lifetimes.
If artificial general intelligence is on the not too distant horizon, surely we should be ensuring that it is not owned by anyone corporation and that at its core it respects our core values.
If we think in months we focus on immediate problems such as the present-day wars, the Covid crisis, the Donald Trumps, the economy, if we think in decades, climate, growing inequality, the loss of jobs to automation are all presenting dangers. But if we look at life in total, science is converging on data processing and AI that is developing itself with algorithms.
When intelligence is approached in an incremental manner, with strict reliance on interfacing to the real world through perception and action, reliance on representation disappears.
It won’t be long before we will not be unable to distinguish the real world from the virtual world.
Since there is only one real world and there can be infinite virtual worlds the probability that you will inhabit this sole world is zero.
So it won’t matter whether computers will be conscious or not.
Is starting to feel like it’s every man for himself, Is possible that right now, a global crisis is upon us, Without even knowing… And the virus may not be the biggest threat, but the crisis that follows, Everyday goods that keep us alive will be gone, I’m talking, food, freshwater, medicine, clothes, fuel…
Intelligence is decoupling from consciousness and soon rather than later it will be consigned to Google, Facebook, Twitter, Smartphones, and the like to make decisions that are not possible to reverse.
You might think that the above is stupid but it won’t be long before we will be witnessing the most unequal societies in history.
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We humans will soon be living with robots that process data without any subjective experiences or consciousness or moral opprobrium.
As we watch robots, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence machines, and the like slowly (and sometimes rapidly) permeate our world, it’s not hard to imagine them going from permeating to taking over.
Algorithms are increasingly determining our collective future.
It will only matter what they think about you.
We are already halfway towards a world where algorithms run everything.
This is why many of the issues raised in this post will require close monitoring, to ensure that the oversight of machine learning-driven algorithms continues to strike an appropriate and safe balance between recognizing the benefits (for healthcare and other public services, for example, and for innovation in the private sector) and the risks (for privacy and consent, data security and any unacceptable impacts on individuals).
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WHAT CAN GOVERNMENTS DO?
Please regulate AI, this is too dangerous.
Given the international nature of digital innovation, governments, should establish audits of algorithms, introducing certification of algorithms, and charging ethics boards with oversight of algorithmic decisions.
Why?
They are bringing big changes in their wake.
From better medical diagnoses to driverless cars, and within central governments where there are opportunities to make public services more effective and achieve long-term cost savings.
However, the Government should produce, publish, and maintain a list of where algorithms with significant impacts are being used within the Central Government, along with projects underway or planned for public service algorithms, to aid not just private sector involvement but also transparency.
Governments should not just simply accept what the developers of algorithms offer in return for data access.
To this end, Governments should be at the forefront of the creation of a “statutory building code”, which describes mandatory safety and quality requirements for digital platforms.
Social networks should be required by law to release details of their algorithms and core functions to trusted researchers, in order for the technology to be vetted.
This Law should enable the enforcement of,
If we are not careful they will have no notion of self, existing only in the present unaware of the past or future, and therefore will be unable to consciously plan for future eventualities.
Unconscious algorithms in our brains rather than conscious images in a mind.
If you are using a smartphone, it indirectly means that you are enjoying the AI knowingly or unknowingly. It cannot be modified unknowingly or can’t get disfigured or breakdown in a hostile environment.
We should not be regulating technology but Artificial Intelligence.
It is so complicated in behavior we need to be regulated it at the data level.
In lots of regulated domains, there is this notion of post-market surveillance, which is where the developer bears the responsibility of how the technology developed by them is going to be used.
As William Shakespeare wrote in – As you Like it.
” All the world is a stage, and all the men and women merely players, they have their exits and entrances. ”
Sadly with AI, Machine Learning Algorithms no one knows or for that matter will ever know when they enter or exit.
Probably like AI learning is actually an ongoing process that takes place throughout all of life. It’s the process of moving information from out there — to here. Unfortunately with the brain, has its own set of rules by which it learns best, unlike AI, the information doesn’t always stick. Together, we have a lot to learn.
Humanity is in contact with humanity.
All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the cloud bin.
