Abstract
In contemporary societies, surveillance has become omnipresent with the integration of AI systems. As knowledge intensifies on AI’s position and role in surveillance, this chapter evaluates some of the risks identified by previous scholars in regard to AI-enabled surveillance for public safety and their social impacts. It privileges social constructivism as its theoretical framework to describe AI as a socio-technical system that dynamically redefines social structures through surveillance. It conceptualizes the role of AI in surveillance through a philosophical perspective that integrates knowledge from other fields of study. The first section focuses on the implementation of AI in video and digital surveillance and its relation with public safety. The important role of governments and corporations is integrated in the conceptualization of the development and execution of surveillance in the society. The second section discusses four risks associated with the application of AI in surveillance which are biases in algorithms, the arbitrary factors in surveillance, the lack of transparency in disproportionated collection of data and the negative psychological and social impacts. These risks are all interconnected which results in a complex dynamic of challenges related to AI application. It concludes with an integrated analysis that describes the process of alteration empowered by AI tools in surveillance to explain the risks for contemporary societies.
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Perez-Des Rosiers, D. (2021). AI Application in Surveillance for Public Safety: Adverse Risks for Contemporary Societies. In: Keskin, T., Kiggins, R.D. (eds) Towards an International Political Economy of Artificial Intelligence. International Political Economy Series. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74420-5_6
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