Transcript of the above video: 

Well here we are. More is coming through. On one level this is going to be purely sort of a Police News piece but on another level, this video is about some things I have been talking about: OECD, Digital Money, the sort of totalitarianism that we have just seen the shadow of it creeping over the earth. I keep thinking of the opening scene of the movie Casablanca, where they have this like globe and it sort of shows the demarcation line between the two sort of fronts of the World War if you will, and there is like a dark side and a light side. The shadow of this totalitarianism seems to be stretching everywhere. 

I thought of making this video after reading a recent article from The Phuket News, that is thephuketnews.com, the article is titled: AI lands arrest for unpaid wages. Quoting directly: "A suspect wanted on charges related to unpaid wages and compensation has been arrested in Phuket after being identified by an AI-powered CCTV system linked to a national arrest warrant database." So I have been talking some time now about, for example going back into 2023, I was pretty darn vocal about the issues associated with the Digital Wallet or what was being touted as the Digital Wallet that they were going to roll out for all of us Thais and we were going to have to increase our debt to GDP ratio by 20% and we were going to have all this money that they could digitally track and trace us all with and they would be able to tell us how to spend it, and they would be able to have basically a perimeter in which you could spend it, and it would be all kinds of technocratic totalitarianism. It didn't ultimately come to pass. Fortunately, Thais are a free people, and they saw the system for what it was and they rejected it basically, and we moved on down the road. But these things, they have a tendency to evolve toward more centralization, toward more for lack of a better term, totalitarianism. The situation though at the present time, I do understand the police, where they are at. They have tools, they have the ability to interact their warrant database now with facial recognition and AI technology and CCTV footage, they are going to use it. If they can use it to apprehend somebody that's got an arrest warrant out for them, I get that but I think it's important to note that this has substantial implications down the road and I am just hoping folks are cognizant of this and maybe we do some things to curtail this getting too far out of hand. Again being utilized for somebody who has an active warrant out on them, that doesn't bother me as much as the notion that perhaps they start using this for other reasons. 

That said, quoting directly: "Officers from the Investigation Unit of Division 2, Tourist Police Bureau 3 made the arrest on Sunday, March 15, after receiving an automated alert from the AI Surveillance System." So that's the first thing you have to notice. It's not like Colombo is putting together the facts here, the clues, and then they are finding this person. No, the AI is doing this automatically, and the AI is telling the police, "hey we have an issue here." Now here's my question. What would happen if perhaps somehow the biometrics malfunctioned, the reader malfunctioned, and facial recognition was incorrect. It's one of those things, facial recognition, biometric technology reminds me a lot of the way that they used to frame DNA some 30 years ago. And when it first came out, there were people that said, "hey, this is not infallible. DNA in and of itself is not an infallible metric for determining someone's identity." For example in terms of all kinds of different things. DNA evidence and things of this nature. Now again, it's pretty darn good. It has compelling evidentiary potential, but it is not and should not be viewed as an open and shut "oh well DNA evidence, okay." It really shouldn't and I view this sort of facial recognition technology as similar. That said, quoting further: "which is designed to match faces captured on CCTV with outstanding warrants held by the Crime Suppression Division. Police reported that the system flagged an individual wanted under an arrest warrant issued by the Phuket Provincial Court. The suspect faces multiple charges including jointly failing to pay wages in lieu of advance notice, failing to provide legally required compensation, and failing to comply with orders issued by a labour inspector." So also understand that this person was arrested and their arrest came about through the CCTV footage on a labour violation. So this is somebody who was under a warrant for not paying certain monies owed in a labour context. I'm not saying it's nothing at the end of the day, but I do wonder in the balance of cost-benefit, if it's worth all this totalitarianism in apprehending somebody over a charge like this. Again, not belittling the charge, it is what it is, but this is the kind of stuff; I mean what happens if you have a traffic ticket that you didn't know about and now you are walking through a mall one day and you get apprehended and detained. Again, the cost-benefit to society needs to be looked at. 

I understand a need for Law and Order, but basic freedom just to be able to wander around without being identified à la Minority Report where Tom Cruise is walking around through the mall, and he has another guy's eyeballs in his head and all of these biometric scanners are scanning his retinas and they are saying, "hey Mr. Takahashi, nice to see you again", sort of thing. I mean with this kind of tech we are talking about; we are not far off from all of this. That said, quoting further: "Following the alert, Officers moved to locate and apprehend the suspect. He was taken into custody without incident and handed over to investigators at Kathu Police Station for further legal proceedings. Authorities did not release the suspect's name. Quoting further: "The use of AI enabled CCTV technology has become an increasingly prominent tool for law enforcement in Thailand, particularly in tourist areas such as Phuket where authorities have expanded surveillance networks to enhance Public Safety and track individuals wanted under Court-issued warrants." Yeah, it's that "track individuals" part that makes me uneasy. 

Again, I think I'll go ahead and use Minority Report, that scene where he's walking through the mall and he's being scanned in a thumbnail for this video because again I am not talking about people that have warrants and I don't know where the line exactly is on this, but this technology has substantially eerie ramifications to say the least. I am very hopeful that folks in places of policy making position are looking at this through the lens of "we need to be careful with this", not "it's the end all be all and the greatest thing ever" because again, we could end up living in a world where you don't even want to step outside for fear of what you are going to be scanned on, and again it starts off with court warrants; what happens if some policy is made that - again this this all comes from one place, in many instances. The World Economic Forum seems to be the place where a lot of the notions behind this are sort of articulated. They want to be able to track and trace everybody, and they want to be able to impose - not unlike COVID - a lot of arbitrary and capricious protocols and rules on people and then just sort of enforce it through some AI control grid. And this isn't anything being hyperbolic at this point. This is what is happening.

I am very, very hopeful authorities in Thailand take this as seriously as it should be taken. Again, I understand they probably think it's one of the greatest law enforcement tools since the invention of handcuffs or something, because they will be able to, again it was the AI that found this person. So how this plays out remains to be seen. We will certainly be keeping you updated on this channel as the situation evolves.