Oracle founder Larry Ellison is making waves with comments in which he makes the case for AI-based mass surveillance, in the interest of keeping people on their best behavior.

Oracle is one of the leading cloud providers, and has benefited greatly from the AI boom. The companies services are in high demand, thanks largely to the fully-integrated solutions and security the company provides.

Oracle’s Surveillance History

Unfortunately, Oracle is also known for issues with mass surveillance, with Ellison being a major proponent of the practice. In fact, the company faced a class action lawsuit in 2022, in which the plaintiffs accused the company of setting out to surveil people, regardless of whether they were Oracle customers or not.

According to Ellison, the purpose of Oracle ID Graph is to predict and influence the future behavior of billions of people. He explained Oracle could achieve this goal by looking at social activity and locations in real time, including “micro location[s].” For example, Ellison has represented that companies will be able to know how much time someone spends in a specific aisle of a specific store and what is in the aisle of the store. “By collecting this data and marrying it to things like micro location information, Internet users’ search histories, websites visits and product comparisons along with their demographic data, and past purchase data, Oracle will be able to predict purchase intent better than anyone.”

Ellison’s Latest Comments

Ellison has done little to quell those fears, and may well fuel another lawsuit, with his most recent comments at a company financial meeting. In the meeting, Ellison describes (transcript lightly edited for grammar) a future where cameras are constantly filming individuals, regardless of what they are doing, with some videos only accessible via a court order.

Ellison uses the example of police body cameras, saying that even when police request they be turned off for privacy reasons—such as using the restroom or having a private lunch—the cameras never stop recording. Instead, video labeled ‘private’ is simply locked and inaccessible without a court order.

“The police will be on their best behavior because we’re constantly recording and watching everything that’s going on,” Ellison said. “Citizens will be on their best behavior, because we’re constantly recording everything that is going on. And it’s unimpeachable. The cars have cameras on them. We’re using AI to monitor the video.

“It’s not people that are looking at those cameras; it’s AI that’s looking at the cameras.”

Ellison says the system will help prevent crime by giving society “super vision” to see shootings and other crimes immediately. He also says that “every police officer is going to be supervised at all times, and if there’s a problem, AI will report the problem and report it to the appropriate person.”

Ellison also says a new generation of AI-powered autonomous drones will make high-speed car chases a thing of the past. Instead, a drone will simply follow a suspect until they stop and can be arrested.

Anyone who thinks they can go out in the woods to get away from technology is in for a disappointment, if Ellison has his way, describing a situation in which autonomous drones will monitor people’s campfires to make sure they’re not unattended.

Tech Executives Keep Using Dystopian Fiction as a Blueprint

Ellison is simply the latest tech executive who seems to believe that dystopian fiction should provide a blueprint for how the future should look.

Books and movies like 1984, Minority Report, Blade Runner, Divergent, and many more serve as cautionary tales of what technology can cause, not what it should cause. Unfortunately, Ellison and many others have failed to get the memo and are instead rushing headlong to make many people’s worst fears an everyday reality.