'Digital welfare state': Big Tech allowed to target and surveil the poor, UN warns

Nations around the world are "stumbling zombie-like into a digital welfare dystopia" in which artificial intelligence and other technologies are used to target, surveil and punish the poorest people, the United Nation's monitor on poverty has warned. Philip Alston, UN rapporteur on extreme poverty, has produced a devastating account of how new digital technologies are revolutionizing the interaction between governments and the most vulnerable in society. In what he calls the rise of the "digital welfare state", billions of dollars of public money is now being invested in automated systems that are radically changing the nature of social protection. Alston's report on the human rights implications of the shift will be presented to the UN general assembly on Friday. It says that AI has the potential to improve dramatically the lives of disadvantaged communities, but warns that such hope is being lost amid the constant drive for cost cutting and "efficiency".