Larry Ellison: "Citizens will behave in the best possible way because we are recording"

Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, who serves as CTO of the cloud giant, has been part of the technology industry's furniture for decades now. Looking ahead, he foresees the rise of technologies such as AI, drones and additional surveillance systems.

The modern surveillance state

Ellison's warning came during an hour-long question-and-answer session at an Oracle financial analyst meeting in September 2024.

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This world Ellison describes revolves around AI technologies processing huge amounts of video footage from exploding street cameras, cars, front doors and even police officers. The AI, he added, will automatically flag issues it detects while analyzing captured images in real time.

With so many opportunities to analyze and detect wrongdoing in society and with AI reducing the burden of processing and decision-making, Ellison posited that citizens will respond similarly by adjusting their behavior. This vision bears a striking resemblance to that described by George Orwell in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, in which Big Brother supervised the daily actions of citizens.

Grappling with an AI-powered dystopia

The movement against AI's role in surveillance is broad, with plenty of commentary and research identifying why this is happening. There are, for example, concerns about the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) monitoring of social media using AI used to analyze and summarize the results.

Other reports suggest that big companies are getting into workplace surveillance. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, for example, recently admitted on a call with employees that AI is being used to study and process employees' daily actions to collect data to train future models and agents. This comes shortly after reports that the company is tracking clicks and keystrokes on devices.

Whether in the workplace – or in society at large – the direction of travel over the past two decades has favored increased control and surveillance, with Ellison clearly concerned that emerging technologies will only further fuel this fire.

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Keumars Afifi-Sabet is a freelance contributor for Tech Radar and the technology editor for Live Science. He has written for various publications including ITPro, The Week Digital and ComputerActive. He has worked as a technology journalist for over five years, having previously served as a features editor at ITPro. In his previous role, he oversaw the commissioning and publication of long-form documents in areas including AI, cybersecurity, cloud computing and digital transformation.

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