AI is on the verge of ushering in a new era of mass surveillance, says Oracle cofounder Larry Ellison, adding that his juggernaut is ready to serve as the technological backbone for such applications.

Those applications including keeping everyone "on their best behavior" through the use of constant real-time machine-learning-powered monitoring.

Ellison made the comments near the end of an hour-long chat at the Oracle financial analyst [1]meeting last week during a question and answer session in which he unsurprisingly painted Oracle – a long-time US government contractor that has done various IT deals lately with [2]AWS and [3]Microsoft – as the AI infrastructure player.

[4]

Many companies, Ellison claimed, build AI models at Oracle because of its "unique networking architecture," which dates back to the database era.

AI is hot, and databases are not

"AI is hot, and databases are not," he said, making Oracle's part of the puzzle seemingly less sexy but no less important, at least according to the man himself: AI systems have to have well-organized data, or else they won't be that valuable. The fact that some big names in cloud computing (and Elon Musk's Grok) have turned to Oracle to run their AI infrastructure means it's clear Oracle is doing something right, claimed now-CTO Ellison.

"If Elon and Satya [Nadella] want to pick us, that's a good sign - we have tech that's valuable and differentiated," Ellison said, adding: "One of the ideal uses of that differentiated offering? Maximizing AI's public security capabilities."

Oracle: Your mass AI surveillance cloud platform

Envisaging the combination of Oracle Cloud Infrastructure and advanced AI, Ellison predicted a world of constant accountability for the Americans of tomorrow, where computers keep everyone in line.

"The police will be on their best behavior because we're constantly watching and recording everything that's going on," Ellison told analysts. He described police body cameras that were constantly on, with no ability for officers to disable the feed to Oracle.

[5]

[6]

Even requesting privacy for a bathroom break or a meal only meant sections of recording would require a subpoena to view - not that the video feed was ever stopped. AI would be trained to monitor officer feeds for anything untoward, which Ellison said could prevent abuse of police power and save lives.

[7]Oracle staff say Larry Ellison's fundraiser for Trump is against 'company ethics' – Oracle, ethics... what dimension have we fallen into?

[8]SQL king Larry Ellison becomes sequel sultan with controlling interest in Paramount Global

[9]Cop warrant orders Ring to cough up footage from inside this guy's home

[10]Oracle wants to power 1GW datacenter with trio of tiny nuclear reactors

"Every police officer is going to be supervised at all times," Ellison explained. "If there's a problem AI will report that problem to the appropriate person."

But Oracle doesn't just want a hand in keeping the cops accountable.

Citizens will be on their best behavior because we're constantly recording and reporting

"Citizens will be on their best behavior because we're constantly recording and reporting," Ellison added, though it's not clear what he sees as the source of those recordings - police body cams or publicly placed security cameras.

"There are so many opportunities to exploit AI," he said.

The Oracle CTO also suggested that drones could be used to pursue police suspects instead of relying on patrol vehicle chases, and that satellite imagery of farms can be analyzed by AI to forecast crop yield and suggest ways to improve field conditions. Whatever it is, Ellison wants [11]Oracle's share of that pie to keep growing regardless of the potential privacy implications.

[12]

We reached out to Oracle to get clarification about some of Ellison's statements, but haven't heard back. ®

Get our [13]Tech Resources



[1] https://www.oracle.com/events/financial-analyst-meeting-2024/

[2] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/10/oracle_q1/

[3] https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/12/oracle_q4_2024/

[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Zuiqg7A7mVza7KZjFwjmSwAAAoU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0

[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Zuiqg7A7mVza7KZjFwjmSwAAAoU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Zuiqg7A7mVza7KZjFwjmSwAAAoU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[7] https://www.theregister.com/2020/02/15/ellisons_trump_fundraiser/

[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/06/larry_ellison_paramount_global/

[9] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/08/police_ring_privacy/

[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/09/11/oracle_1gw_datacenter_smr_plan/

[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/13/larry_ellison_worth_15_billion/

[12] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Zuiqg7A7mVza7KZjFwjmSwAAAoU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0

[13] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/