#surveillance

Doug is considering a new zine, tentatively titled Field Notes on Ambient Surveillance, which explores how surveillance has become normalised in everyday life. The zine would examine the ways in which seemingly benign technologies, such as read receipts and location histories, contribute to a culture of ambient surveillance. Doug believes this topic offers fertile ground for a zine, as it highlights the ordinary, yet pervasive, nature of observation in modern society.

Anthropic now requires government-issued ID for some Claude features, using Peter Thiel-backed Persona. The author worries this could enable nationalist or fascistic export controls on AI usage. They outline three responses: comply with obfuscation, run everything locally, or join a cooperative compute network.