Re: Transparent Society

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Mon May 08 2000 - 06:48:08 MDT


"John Calvin" <mercurial@disinfo.net> writes:

> A possible scenario in a transparent society.
...
[Scenario where John gets falsely arrested as a would-be terrorist]
...
> I don't have an answer to these questions, they however give me
> reason to be extremely wary of "Transparent Society"

I'm reading Brin right now, and it seems like your scenario would not
be likely in a society with sane laws. "Innocent until proven guilty",
you know. Also, the responsible agencies would be held accountable for
their actions by the public, so if they made a false arrest and you
made a stink about it they would have to explain their actions. If we
assume a transparent society where "innocent until proven guilty" does
not hold or antiterrorism laws are applied with very little factual
support, then there will likely be enough such cases for a very strong
public opinion to correct the system.

Brin makes a point about the importance of the feedback from the
public in maintaining a democratic open society. If everything is
entrusted into the hands of experts and their AIs, then the society
will not remain democratic and open for long. Transparency has to act
both ways.

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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