Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ AI and the privatisation of everything

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

"'Artificial intelligence' as a term has long been associated with privatising public goods," writes Helen Beetham in this widely shared post. The idea is that the companies mine public data and convert it into an information service. "Legal frameworks that might protect the public realm are actively undermined or evaded, whether these are anti-trust laws in North America or data protection laws and AI regulation in the EU, tax regimes or copyright laws everywhere." We see this especially in the case of health care, where nominally private patient data held by public health care services is incorporated into commercial tools that graduate replace the provision of public services. This works well at first, and for many, but over time "vulnerable people in an under-resourced healthcare system are likely to find apps being used to manage and even to frustrate their attempts to access care."

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
stephen@downes.ca

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Last Updated: Apr 30, 2024 3:35 p.m.

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