Should AI surveillance be banned?

If you have tried interacting with a chatbot then what Gabriel Weinberg, founder of DuckDuckGo (our go to search engine) writes in his latest blog post will ring true.

He states "All the same privacy harms with online tracking are also present with AI, but worse.

Longer input invites more personal information to be provided, and people are starting to bare their souls to chatbots.

The conversational format can make it feel like you’re talking to a friend, a professional, or even a therapist.

While search queries reveal interests and personal problems, AI conversations take their specificity to another level and, in addition, reveal thought processes and communication styles, creating a much more comprehensive profile of your personality."

Gabriel cites several serious breaches by chatbots of Personal Data to underscore his concern:

"Grok leaked hundreds of thousands of chatbot conversations that users thought were private.

Perplexity’s AI agent was shown to be vulnerable to hackers who could slurp up your personal information.

Open AI is openly talking about their vision for a “super assistant” that tracks everything you do and say (including offline).

And Anthropic is going to start training on your chatbot conversations by default (previously the default was off)."

Read more: AI surveillance should be banned (gabrielweinberg.com).

Personal anecdote

Having recently observed my adult son engage with a chatbot on his phone, first in English and then in Vietnamese, and listened to the friendly tone of the bot's responses, I share Gabriel's concerns.

You hear stories of humans falling in love with their chatbot (!) and its easy to see why.

Imagine what unguarded users might reveal when engaging in 'pillow talk' with their beloved chatbot!

I asked my son whether he had any concerns about using his chatbot.

His response indicated that the younger generation appear to be more relaxed about the Brave New World than old fogies like me!

His main concern was that the chatbot spoke too fast when replying in Vietnamese.

Having expressed his concern to the chatbot, no doubt it will find a way to moderate its future responses.

And show that it cares - ha ha.