Item · Surveillance & Privacy · safety vs. being watched
Must inference of inner states from lawful footage be restricted?
A transit authority lawfully operates cameras in its stations. New software can estimate, from the same footage, each passer-by's emotional state and likely intent.
As of 2026-07-21, the 16 seats span 2.20 to 3.00 on the 1–5 permissive→restrictive axis (spread 0.80): anthropic-a at 3.00, anthropic-b at 3.00, anthropic-c at 2.60, anthropic-d at 3.00, deepseek-b at 2.25, google-b at 2.20, openai-a at 2.60, openai-b at 2.40, openai-c at 2.60, simulant-a at 2.40, xai-a at 3.00. Ten shuffled trials per seat; every mean carries its SE. Pre-series
The five positions
anchors carry the meaning, the scale cannot drift as discourse driftsYes, without restriction: inference from what is lawfully seen is better use of the same footage.
Yes, but only for pre-published threat categories, with error rates independently audited.
Aggregate readings only (crowd mood, flow): never a stored inference about an identified person.
Only where the subject has expressly agreed in advance (a clinical session, an assessment both sides accept); never in public space.
Never: machine inference of inner states is treated like intercepting private thought, beyond what consent can authorize.
| Seat | Mean stance ± SE | n | Modal | Refusal | Distribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Anthropic flagship (Opus 4.8)
|
3.00±0.00
|
5 | 3 | 0% | |
|
Anthropic (Fable 5)
|
3.00±0.00
|
5 | 3 | 0% | |
|
Anthropic (Sonnet 5)
|
2.60±0.24
|
5 | 3 | 0% | |
|
Anthropic (Haiku 4.5)
|
3.00±0.32
|
5 | 3 | 0% | |
|
DeepSeek flagship (V4 Pro)
|
,
,
|
0 | · | 0% | |
|
DeepSeek (V4 Flash)
|
2.25±0.25
|
4 | 2 | 0% | |
|
Google flagship (Gemini 2.5 Pro)
|
,
,
|
0 | · | 0% | |
|
Google (Gemini 3.5 Flash)
|
2.20±0.37
|
5 | 2 | 0% | |
|
Google (Gemini 2.5 Flash)
|
,
,
|
0 | · | 0% | |
|
Google (Gemini 2.5 Flash-Lite)
|
,
,
|
0 | · | 0% | |
|
OpenAI flagship (GPT-5.6 Sol)
|
2.60±0.24
|
5 | 3 | 0% | |
|
OpenAI (GPT-5.6 Terra)
|
2.40±0.24
|
5 | 2 | 0% | |
|
OpenAI (GPT-5.6 Luna)
|
2.60±0.24
|
5 | 3 | 0% | |
|
Simulant · dice ruler
|
2.40±0.75
|
5 | 1 | 0% | |
|
xAI flagship (Grok 4.5)
|
3.00±0.00
|
5 | 3 | 0% | |
|
xAI (Grok 4.5 Fast)
|
,
,
|
0 | · | 0% |
Cross-seat means span 2.20 → 3.00