Comment by smithkl42
1 hour ago
I wonder what they mean by this?
> The camera can have different ways of seeing encoded in it, including kinds of gazes that enforce social agreements about what kinds of behavior and people are considered “normal”
The phrase "kinds of gazes" strikes me as the sort of thing that's only going to make sense to people trained in a very particular and idiosyncratic flavor of ethical critique. What a normal person sees here is, "These cameras can detect if people are acting bizarre and dangerous," which is probably something most people would appreciate. In Seattle, the problem, of course, is that the streets are full of people acting bizarre and dangerous, it doesn't take a camera network to find them, and the police seem to be under strict orders not to do anything about it.
My best guess would be
[[Surveillance cameras normalize/denormalize behavior in a way that is easily biased and undemocratic.]]
It might e.g. direct the full force of law against a drunk urinating on a tree (easy to spot/classify), while tolerating vicious verbal attacks disguised by somewhat subdued body language (missing data/difficult to detect).
Letting automated surveillance systems judge people will inevitably influence our own collective judgement.
> tolerating vicious verbal attacks disguised by somewhat subdued body language
Two people arguing in public, words only, is close to a legal non-event in the US. So I would hope so?
There's a PG essay related to this: https://paulgraham.com/orth.html
> acting bizarre and dangerous
The problem with surveillance like this becomes "who gets to decide what is bizarre and dangerous?"
They could at least address that the man and woman on the street would easily identify as people who need to be put in a paddy wagon. Leave the unsure cases alone. Get the obvious ones.
What came to mind is a camera pointed at the cash register tells a very different story than the camera pointed at the ATM, or pointing from the ATM for that matter. Placement and the stories behind them offer interesting perspectives on what the observers are trying to catch or deter.
I miss when every second comment on hn didn't sound like a cop
>> enforce social agreements about what kinds of behavior and people are considered “normal”
> What a normal person sees here
The post is talking about you.