Larry Ellison: “Citizens will be on their best behavior because we’re recording”

拉里·埃里森：“公民会表现得规规矩矩，因为我们正在进行监控”

Co-founder of Oracle, Larry Ellison, who serves as the cloud giant’s CTO, has been part of the tech industry’s furniture for decades now. Looking ahead, he projects the rise of technologies such as AI, drones, and additional monitoring systems. “Citizens will be on their best behavior, because we’re constantly recording and reporting everything that is going on.” 甲骨文公司（Oracle）联合创始人、现任首席技术官拉里·埃里森（Larry Ellison）在科技行业深耕数十年，是该领域的资深人物。展望未来，他预测人工智能、无人机以及各类监控系统将会兴起。他表示：“公民会表现得规规矩矩，因为我们正在持续记录并报告所发生的一切。”

Ellison’s warning came during an hour-long Q&A at an Oracle financial analyst meeting in September 2024. 埃里森的这番警告是在2024年9月甲骨文金融分析师会议上的一次长达一小时的问答环节中提出的。

This world that Ellison describes revolves around AI technologies processing huge amounts of video footage from the explosion of cameras in the streets, cars, front doors, and even police officers. AI will, he added, automatically report issues that it detects while it’s analyzing footage captured in real time. 埃里森所描述的世界围绕着人工智能技术展开，这些技术将处理来自街道、汽车、家门口甚至警察身上激增的摄像头所拍摄的海量视频片段。他补充说，人工智能在实时分析这些捕捉到的画面时，会自动报告它所检测到的问题。

With so much opportunity to scan and detect wrongdoing across society, and AI reducing the processing and decision-making burden, Ellison posited that citizens will, in kind, respond by adjusting their behavior. This vision is eerily similar to that George Orwell described in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, in which Big Brother oversaw the daily actions of citizens. 随着社会各界扫描和发现不当行为的机会大幅增加，加之人工智能减轻了处理和决策的负担，埃里森认为，公民也会相应地调整自己的行为。这种愿景与乔治·奥威尔在小说《1984》中所描述的情景惊人地相似，在书中，“老大哥”时刻监视着公民的日常行为。

The movement against AI playing a role in surveillance is vast, with plenty of commentary and research identifying ways this is happening. There are, for example, concerns over the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) monitoring social media with AI used to scan and summarize findings. 反对人工智能参与监控的运动声势浩大，大量的评论和研究指出了这种现象的发生方式。例如，人们担心美国国土安全部（DHS）利用人工智能扫描和总结社交媒体内容，从而进行监控。

Other reports suggest that big companies are engaging in workplace surveillance. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, for example, recently admitted on an employee call that AI is being used to study and process the day-to-day actions of employees to gather data to train future models and agents. It comes shortly after reports that the company will track clicks and keystrokes on devices. 其他报道显示，大公司也在进行职场监控。例如，Meta首席执行官马克·扎克伯格最近在一次员工电话会议上承认，公司正在利用人工智能研究和处理员工的日常行为，以收集数据来训练未来的模型和智能体。此前不久，有报道称该公司将追踪设备上的点击和按键记录。

Whether in the workplace — or society at large — the direction of travel for the last couple of decades has favored increased monitoring and surveillance, with Ellison clearly concerned that emerging technologies will simply add more fuel to this fire. 无论是在职场还是在整个社会，过去几十年的发展趋势都倾向于加强监控，而埃里森显然担心新兴技术只会为这种趋势推波助澜。