Eons ago, before the internet, Registry of Motor Vehicles records in most states were accessible to the public, but you had to actually go in person to the Registry to look up what you wanted to know. It was an inconvenient pain in the ass, but there were no viable alternatives.
Then the internet arrived, governments started putting up websites, and a bunch of technocrats in various states had the brilliant idea to put the RMV records online. Imagine the convenience of people being able to look stuff up from anywhere! Imagine how much money it would save the RMV to make this self-service! Brilliant!
Except, not. Because when looking up someone’s info required a trip to the RMV, when it was hard, most people wouldn’t do it. Everyone’s information was public in theory, but in practice, it really wasn’t. Remove that barrier, and boom! privacy violations at scale.
A lot of people got hurt before state governments figured out this was a bad idea and passed laws locking down access to RMV records.
This post is about AI being used for weapons targeting in the military.
