It's disheartening that so many bright people work on research that will undoubtedly be abused by authoritarian governments and make the world a worse place for everyone. Ask a thousand people what video analysis can be used for and I bet the vast majority will say surveillance, and most would probably struggle to think about something else.

I wish researchers would start to ask themselves if what they're building can be abused by authoritarian governments, and if so, switch focus to a field of research that will make the world a better, rather than a worse, place to live in.

History will not look kindly on researchers who built the tools that enabled Xi the Pooh to achieve a dystopian surveillance state.