YouSaid · the spoken record

Boris Johnson

lines on the record

55

first

2019-09-24

most recent

2021-09-24

sittings or episodes

3

sources

un-general-debate

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

1. “Are we doomed to a cold and heartless future in which computer says yes, or computer says no, with the grim finality of an emperor in the arena? How does one plead with an algorithm? How does one get it to see extenuating circumstances? How do we know that the machines have not been insidiously programmed to fool us or even to cheat us? We are already using all kinds of messaging services that offer instant communication at minimal cost. These same programmes and platforms could also be designed for real-time censorship of every conversation, with offending words automatically deleted; indeed, in some countries, this is happening today. Digital authoritarianism is not, alas, the stuff of dystopian fantasy but of an emerging reality.”

   2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)

2. “And every day that we tap on our phones or work on our iPads — as I see some of those present here are doing now — we not only leave our indelible spoor in the ether, but we are ourselves becoming a resource click by click, tap by tap. Just as the carboniferous period created the indescribable wealth, leaf by decaying leaf, of hydrocarbons, data is the crude oil of the modern economy. We are now in an environment where we do not know who should own these new oil fields, we do not know who should have the rights or the title to these gushers of cash, and we do not know who decides how to use that data. Can these algorithms be trusted with our lives and hopes? Should the machines, and only the machines, decide whether or not we are eligible for a mortgage or insurance or what surgery or medicines we should receive?”

   2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)

3. “In future, voice connectivity will be in every room and almost every object; your mattress will monitor your nightmares; your fridge will beep for more cheese; your front door will sweep wide the moment you approach, like some silent butler; your smart meter will go hustling — of its own accord — for the cheapest electricity, and every one of them minutely transcribing your every habit in tiny electronic shorthand, stored not in their chips or their innards — nowhere you can find it, but in some great cloud of data that lowers ever more oppressively over the human race. A giant dark thundercloud is waiting to burst, and we have no control over how or when the precipitation will take place.”

   2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)

4. “You may keep secrets from your friends, from your parents, your children, your doctor, even your personal trainer, but it takes real effort to conceal your thoughts from Google. And if that is true today, in future there may be nowhere to hide. Smart cities will pullulate with sensors, all joined together by the Internet of Things, bollards communing invisibly with lampposts, so there is always a parking space for your electric car, so that no bin goes unemptied, no street unswept, and the urban environment is as antiseptic as a Zurich pharmacy. But this technology could also be used to keep every citizen under round-the-clock surveillance. A future Alexa will pretend to take orders, but this Alexa will be watching you, clucking her tongue and stamping her foot.”

   2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)

5. “It is customary for the British Prime Minister to come to the United Nations and pledge to advance our values and defend our rules, the rules of a peaceful world, from protecting freedom of navigation in the Gulf to persevering in the vital task of achieving a two-State solution to the conflict in the Middle East. And, of course, I am proud to do all of these things. But no one can ignore a gathering force that is reshaping the future of every member of the General Assembly. There has been nothing like it in history. When I think of the great scientific revolutions of the past — print, the steam engine, aviation, the atomic age — I think of new tools that we acquired but over which we, the human race, had the advantage, which we controlled. That is not necessarily the case in the digital age.”

   2019-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 74 (2019)