Way to go! About time this happened. I’d love to see more bans.

At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I’d say that this widespread collection of data, facial recognition and tracking is ideally what leads to a one-world government where individual autonomy is monitored, suppressed and restricted.

Cyberpunk, the game and comics, suddenly don’t feel so futuristic anymore.

The article is behind a pay wall, but I was able to read some of it.
I particularly agree with this statement:

“We politicians must have the courage to be honest about what this is really about: one of the world’s richest companies has launched a product whose entire business idea is to make it impossible to know when you are being filmed,” Oslo’s Vice Mayor for Education Julie Remen Midtgarden said.

Data collection will always be a main priority of such devices, as it will be used to train AIs and sold to other bidders.

I won’t comment on world governments. However, it is known through leaks in documents from companies like Palantir, that they want to have some sort of monopoly in data, at least in the US, where the current Trump administration is actively helping them.

This company is specially interesting in that regard, as it is openly using its data to entrench itself in areas such as facial recognition, security guaranties, propaganda and war. (reader discretion is advised, it is all fairly depressing)

That said, for me the real pull from games like Cyberpunk, is how obvious they make it clear that dystopian futures are not a good thing, and yet we still have a considerable number of people with real power and influence still pushing in that direction.

The value of cyberpunk is not only in its story or gameplay, but also in the comment and reflection the narrative offers (and the same can be said for the Witcher games/stories where everything is a mishmash of grey).

Strange. I’ve clicked and I can still see the entire article. The Local as a site tends to NOT to have a lot of paywalls. Maybe you are being geo-restricted?

Exactly. This is the game plan. Free training for the companies while this fact remains oblivious to users.

I have mixed feelings about AI and warfare. I get it that geeks don’t want to be involved in war but that doesn’t mean that our/your enemies won’t. Palantir does have questionable behavior and practices, but I am pretty sure that there are many Palantirs out there that NOBODY KNOWS about.

You can say that again. I’m reading the comics and every single one of them has a BAD ENDING. Its either betrayal, suffering or death.

In Cyberpunk, the corpos own the city. They make money while everybody starves. They are isolated from disaster, pain or suffering. Isn’t that the same case with these powerful people today?

Oh, we could go on and on about this. I’m glad I met a fellow Witcher and Cyberpunk fan!