Social control and new technologies: for an ethical debate

Abstract

Taking into account the broad technological development of the last decades, the reigning actuarialism before the management of high risk social groups, and the increasingly massive use of artificial intelligence techniques for control purposes, especially criminal control, the present praper argues that, despite the Brazilian legislative evolution in matters of privacy and data protection, it is essential to criticize the expansion of the web of control, which is particularly dangerous when deep-rooted desires as security at (almost) any cost are put into question. Furthermore, this analysis intends to demonstrate that there are several – and, perhaps, unavoidable – risks and issues inherent to the trivialization of artificial intelligence as a control technique, especially with regard to damages resulting from the lack of transparency; to the illusion of efficiency linked to prediction techniques; to the problem of algorithmic biases and discrimination; and the issue of selectivity – inherent to the criminal system and enhanced by machines – as well as all of its secondary effects, especially regarding the widening of distortions in the Brazilian prison system and the incapacitation, at the limit, of entire communities, without any real prevention of actual criminality. In this sense, an ethical debate becomes urgent.