What They Don't Tell You

Posted on: Wednesday, July 22, 2026 at 11:10PM

When talking about AI, there’s one glaring thing that people don’t realize. Especially when I talk about the surveillance state implications of it, AI fans get really upset. So I decided I’d detail why in a separate post.

Consulting it through daily life

One thing A LOT of people are doing is running everyday dilemmas through AI. Everything from what to eat, what they’re thinking about, weight loss, fitness routines, and creative ideas. You name it, I have seen someone or heard of someone piping it through AI.

So for many it is turning into a personal crutch.

If people are just doing things like tasks and coding with it, the implications wouldn’t be as bad. Since said code would end up in a git repo or the tasks results would likely be shared with others some way anyway. But a lot of people are using it for so much more.

Surveillance

When people think about surveillance, they think about just video surveillance. So in the media, ALPR cameras are the buzz because they push on the threat of near-constant video surveillance.

Video surveillance is tangible. People can visualize their physical being, their car, or their devices being watched.

But they never think about their thoughts.

Thoughts can be much worse

Okay, so it’s taking me a while to get to the punchline on this one, but we’re getting there.

So, on the AI surveillance front, what happens if the AI firms which own the LLM instances which people talk to like it’s their best friend, decides to share chat history with governments? Or sell it off to other companies so they can make money advertising to their customers?

Nothing good.

Is it pre-surveillance?

I’m not sure on the technicalities of what it would be called.

But that doesn’t really matter. Imagine if police departments not only know where you’ve been and your current location. But where you are going to go. Since many police officers have already been caught using ALPR cameras to stalk women and their exes, what would they be able to do with future wereabouts on said people?

Pretty scary isn’t it.

Political arena

This revelation could change the political arena in the future. Currently to get a live gauge on how constituents are feeling during an election cycle, politicians have to rely on polls and public social media posts.

But imagine if they could tap into the chat histories of everyone using AI.

Eventually they could not only get a live feed on how constituents are feeling on policies, without their consent. But also, be able to manipulate their thoughts by mandating a change in training material or RAG’ing in some propaganda.

I hope you don’t lose too much sleep over this. But it does kinda answer the question of why AI companies seemingly have unlimited money.