AI Ethics and the End of Privacy | Carissa Véliz
AI ethics sounds reassuring. Carissa Véliz argues it’s a contradiction: you can’t build “ethical” systems on surveillance. The result isn’t accountability, it’s rule by opaque models you can’t inspect or appeal. That’s not ethics, that's the definition of Kafkaesque.
Joining Mark and Jeremy on Thinking on Paper, Carissa Véliz lays out three hard truths.
- Privacy is both a right and a duty. It allows lawyers, journalists, and citizens to act without intimidation. Remove it and democracy loses its working parts.
- Privacy is collective. The choices you make affect everyone else.
- Governments and Big Tech now co-produce surveillance; data moves in both directions, and history shows companies can rival states in coercive power.
Véliz also gets practical: what can be inferred from “just” location, why trading sovereignty for convenience breeds dependence, and how even small shifts — using Signal instead of WhatsApp, Proton instead of Gmail — can matter when 5–10 percent of people change their habits, the power shifts.
Surveillance isn’t the future. It’s the business model, and it works because we accept it.
Not on our watch.
Please enjoy the show.
And subscribe to help us keep telling the human story of technology.
Thanks,
Mark & Jeremy
--
Follow Carissa on X: https://x.com/carissaveliz
Buy Privacy is Power: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/442343/privacy-is-power-by-carissa-veliz/9780552177719
🕘 TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Trailer
2:26 What Is Privacy
5:31 Is Democracy At Risk?
8:34 Government & Big Tech
10:39 How To Decouple Big Tech & Government
12:33 Privacy & The Common Human Experience
16:02 Tools To Protect Your Privacy
17:18 Cookie Clutter
19:30 ChatGPT Writes Policy
20:05 Radical Open Mindedness
21:52 AI Alignment
22:56 AI Ethics
28:09 How To Erase Your Data
29:27 What Should Humanity Be?
--
Connect with Thinking On Paper
PODCAST: www.thinkingonpaper.xyz
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/thinkingonpaperpodcast/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/00volKqMsQntToeho35W47
APPLE: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinking-on-paper-technology-moves-fast-think-slower/id1713227258
Mark X: https://x.com/markfielding99
Mark LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markfielding99/
Jeremy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremygilbertson/
--
📺 Watch these next: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaM8lITXx6Y&t=437s
AI ethics sounds reassuring. Carissa Véliz argues it’s a contradiction: you can’t build “ethical” systems on surveillance. The result isn’t accountability, it’s rule by opaque models you can’t inspect or appeal. That’s not ethics, that’s the definition of Kafkaesque.
Joining Mark and Jeremy on Thinking on Paper, Carissa Véliz lays out three hard truths.
– Privacy is both a right and a duty. It allows lawyers, journalists, and citizens to act without intimidation. Remove it and democracy loses its working parts.
– Privacy is collective. The choices you make affect everyone else.
– Governments and Big Tech now co-produce surveillance; data moves in both directions, and history shows companies can rival states in coercive power.
Véliz also gets practical: what can be inferred from “just” location, why trading sovereignty for convenience breeds dependence, and how even small shifts — using Signal instead of WhatsApp, Proton instead of Gmail — can matter when 5–10 percent of people change their habits, the power shifts.
Surveillance isn’t the future. It’s the business model, and it works because we accept it.
Not on our watch.
Please enjoy the show.
And subscribe to help us keep telling the human story of technology.
Thanks,
Mark & Jeremy
—
Follow Carissa on X: https://x.com/carissaveliz
Buy Privacy is Power: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/442343/privacy-is-power-by-carissa-veliz/9780552177719
🕘 TIMESTAMPS
0:00 Trailer
2:26 What Is Privacy
5:31 Is Democracy At Risk?
8:34 Government & Big Tech
10:39 How To Decouple Big Tech & Government
12:33 Privacy & The Common Human Experience
16:02 Tools To Protect Your Privacy
17:18 Cookie Clutter
19:30 ChatGPT Writes Policy
20:05 Radical Open Mindedness
21:52 AI Alignment
22:56 AI Ethics
28:09 How To Erase Your Data
29:27 What Should Humanity Be?
—
Connect with Thinking On Paper
PODCAST: www.thinkingonpaper.xyz
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/thinkingonpaperpodcast/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/00volKqMsQntToeho35W47
APPLE: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinking-on-paper-technology-moves-fast-think-slower/id1713227258
Mark X: https://x.com/markfielding99
Mark LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markfielding99/
Jeremy: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremygilbertson/
—
📺 Watch these next: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaM8lITXx6Y&t=437s
