He says that the use of those technologies probably saved millions of lives.
The downward slope of the tech can be used for more malicious purposes if someone starts using it. Chin and Lin were shown how the good and bad uses of technology are intertwined.
The city of Hangzhou, which is home to many tech companies, was built on the idea of improving city management. With a dense network of cameras on the street and a cloud-based "city brain" processing data and giving out orders, the "smart city" system is being used to monitor disasters. The authors talked to a man who accompanied his mother to the hospital in an ambulance after she almost drowned. The city was able to turn all the traffic lights on their way to the hospital. This isn't a bad use of the technology.
It has come to a point where the "smart city" technologies are almost indistinguishable from the "safe city" technologies, which aim to enhance police forces. Hikvision is the same company that helped facilitate the mass incarceration of Muslim minorities in the western region of China.
In fact, China is not the only country where police are using cameras. Chin and Lin show how police in New York City use cameras to build a facial recognition database and sometimes use questionable tactics. The police in Minnesota built a database to surveil protesters and journalists.
Chin believes that the tech can no longer be considered neutral. Some technology lend themselves to harmful uses. He says that they lend themselves to authoritarian outcomes with the use of artificial intelligence. Scientists and engineers in these areas should be aware of the technology's potential harms.
It is hard to imagine China reversing course because the implementation of the technology is so widespread.
People shouldn't give up. Chin and Lin argue that cutting off the global supply chain of surveillance tech is one of the ways to intervene.
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