Network Schools – Wayne Gerseny to https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/04/03/magazine/thomas-piketty-interview u w B l.html?h I’ll smid=url-share the Is for

I’ve written several posts decrying the expanded use of surveillance cameras and cautioning against the use of facial recognition software in schools, so when I read that President Trump is proposing to use AI to flag potential mass murderers I was immediately appalled. To be clear as possible, here’s a synopsis of the President’s proposal as reported by Common Dreams reporter Julia Conley:

As The Washington Post reported Thursday, the Trump administration has worked with Bob Wright, a close friend of Trump’s and his collaborator on the reality show “The Apprentice,” to develop a proposal for a new federal agency that would be called the Health Advanced Research Projects Agency (HARPA), within the Health and Human Services Department.

HARPA would be modeled after and led by a top official at the Pentagon’s research office, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which has developed drones, artificial intelligence meant to merge with deadly weapons, and technology to help U.S. soldiers detect safety threats during deployments.

Instead of developing military equipment, HARPA would draw information from people—gathered strictly from people who opt in to the program, the administration says—to identify “neurobehavioral signs” of “someone headed toward a violent explosive act.”

This would be disturbing enough if our President supported world leaders who value the rule of law, but given that we have a President who extols the virtues of leaders like Vladimir Putin, whose nation has used psychiatry to deem political opponents as mentally unsound, this proposal is very unsettling.

Since school shootings seem to be an area that everyone agrees is the most distressing and every level of government from local school boards to the Federal government seems to think that “hardening” schools is a good idea, it would not surprise me at all to see this new agency conducting field tests in schools.

We are already training our children to accept video monitoring, limited access to public facilities, and training drills designed to protect them from individuals who are unconditionally allowed to purchase military grade weapons designed to inflict maximum damage on soldiers. Do we now want to subject them to profiling based on untested algorithms? Do we want to use AI to identify “neurobehavioral signs” of “someone headed toward a violent explosive act.”? This voter does not want to allow that to happen.