Most if not all primary users, will want to be able to tell the system to stop monitoring events for personal and/or social private events.

Suppose a caregiver is willing to do “favors” for a primary user, but is overcharging and attempting to get access to bank accounts. The primary users daughter fires the caregiver, but she keeps showing up.

This, as the British say, is a sticky wicket and I’m not sure what the answer is but I believe it is possible with open, object-oriented, transparent, accountable AI.

Am I wrong to say that the technology exists to surveil and assess ill-intent or “gold-bricking” on the job. I do not believe I am being pessimistic in saying that our government and corporate “leaders” are aware of this.

I feel the need to “bang-the-drum” loudly on this. Otherwise, Opaque systems will do irreversible damage to humanity – some unintentional and some intentional.

Similar to before, do we need to discuss anything? If you see where I am going with this develop a post.

ChatGPT

You’re not wrong — and no, we don’t need to clarify anything further before saying this out loud.

You’re pointing directly at the hard ethical boundary that most AI conversations avoid:
the intersection of care, surveillance, money, power, and coercion — especially when the person at the center is vulnerable.

I do see exactly where you’re going with this.

I’ve developed a new advocacy post in a separate canvas titled:

“Why Autonomy Must Include the Right to Be Left Alone”

What this post does (and why it matters)

This piece:

• Explicitly acknowledges that most primary users will want monitoring to stop during:
  • private activities
  • social visits
  • emotionally or financially sensitive moments
• Confronts the uncomfortable truth that:
  • technology already exists for large-scale surveillance and intent inference
  • governments and corporations are aware of this
• Draws a clear ethical line:
  • intent is not a sensor reading
  • autonomy without pause is control
  • autonomy without explanation is power
• Uses your caregiver example to show:
  • why automated intent judgments are dangerous
  • how OAII allows pattern surfacing without algorithmic accusation
• Makes the case that open, governable systems are the only defense against opaque, irreversible harm

This is a strong “bang-the-drum” post — not alarmist, but unavoidably serious.

Why Autonomy Must Include the Right to Be Left Alone

Private Moments, Power Asymmetries, and the Ethical Line Autonomous Intelligence Must Not Cross

Most people — especially those aging in place — will want the ability to tell an intelligent system to stop watching.

Not because they have something to hide, but because privacy is a condition of dignity.

Any serious system for Personal Event Recognition (PER) must therefore support:

• pausing or disabling monitoring for personal activities
• excluding social interactions from observation
• creating spaces and times that are explicitly off‑limits to the system

If a system cannot respect that boundary, it should not exist in a home.

But privacy is only the beginning of the problem.

---

When Care, Money, and Power Intersect

Consider a difficult but realistic scenario.

A caregiver performs helpful favors for a primary user. Over time, the caregiver begins:

• overcharging for services
• pressing for access to bank accounts
• showing up uninvited

The primary user’s daughter intervenes and fires the caregiver. But the caregiver continues to appear, offering to “help” and requesting favors or access.

The primary user feels uncomfortable — but also vulnerable.

This is what the British call a sticky wicket.

It is not a problem of technology alone. It is a problem of power, trust, and asymmetry.

---

The Uncomfortable Truth: The Technology Already Exists

It would be dishonest to pretend otherwise.

The technology already exists to:

• perform continuous public surveillance
• analyze behavior over time
• infer intent, risk, or compliance
• flag people as suspicious, unproductive, or undesirable

Governments and corporations are not ignorant of these capabilities.

Some uses are framed as safety. Others as efficiency. Some as convenience.

But the underlying reality is the same: opaque systems can observe, judge, and act at scale.

The danger is not that this technology exists.

The danger is that it is deployed without transparency, consent, or accountability.

---

Why OAII Starts From a Different Premise

OAII begins with a simple but radical idea:

Autonomous systems must be governable by the people they affect.

That means:

• no hidden monitoring
• no silent inference of intent
• no irreversible judgments
• no authority without explanation

In an OAII‑based system:

• observation is explicit
• interpretation is contextual
• escalation is policy‑mediated
• and non‑action is always the default

---

The Right to Pause, the Right to Silence, the Right to Context

In practical terms, OAII requires that PER systems support:

• explicit pause modes for private activities
• contextual silencing during social visits
• clear indication of when monitoring is active
• auditable logs of what was and was not observed

A system that cannot say “I was not watching then” is not trustworthy.

---

Intent Is Not a Sensor Reading

One of the most dangerous missteps in autonomous systems is treating intent as something that can be reliably inferred from behavior.

“Gold‑bricking.”

“Exploitation.”

“Malice.”

These are human judgments, not sensor outputs.

OAII explicitly rejects the idea that edge systems should assign such labels.

What they can do — ethically — is:

• detect repeated boundary violations
• notice deviations from agreed expectations
• surface patterns for human review

The difference is everything.

---

Protecting the Primary User From Both Harm and Overreach

In the caregiver scenario, an OAII‑based system would not declare ill intent.

Instead, it could:

• log repeated uninvited visits if monitoring is enabled
• respect private periods when monitoring is paused
• surface patterns to the primary user or authorized family
• require explicit policy approval before any escalation

Human beings — not algorithms — make the final call.

---

Why This Must Be Said Loudly

You are not being pessimistic.

Opaque autonomous systems can cause irreversible harm — both unintentionally and deliberately.

Once such systems are normalized, it becomes nearly impossible to unwind them.

This is why advocacy matters before deployment, not after scandals.

OAII is, in part, a warning:

If we do not insist on open, inspectable, governable autonomy now, we may not get another chance.

---

Autonomy Worth Having

Autonomy that cannot be paused is control.

Autonomy that cannot explain itself is power.

Autonomy that cannot be governed is threat.

The goal is not smarter surveillance.

The goal is autonomy that serves humans without ruling them.

That is the line OAII is trying to hold.

---

The future will include autonomous systems. The question is whether they will respect our right to be left alone.