Assessing the Potential and Ethical Implications of Agentic AI in Surveillance Technology

Agentic AI creates a system rather than a tool, an autonomous entity interacting with the world as humans do. By functionalizing agentic AI into surveillance technologies, we can increase surveillance systems' efficiency, accuracy, and scope, enabling them to monitor vast expanses of public space or issue, for example, a summary of dialogue from thousands of social media posts. However, it also interrogates the ethical dimensions of these systems, including the possible loss of privacy, accountability, and bias in decision making. AI surveillance technology is in use everywhere, but creating a surveillance state at the expense of civil rights, privacy, and freedom is a problem that can't be solved, no matter how many people are willing to use it. This paper proposes that despite the significant security operations improvements realized through agentic AI, the technology warrants an ethical framework with appropriate regulatory guardrails to manage the accompanying risks. Some points raised include the importance of transparency, fairness and accountability in using AI in surveillance settings, ensuring that these technologies are employed in a responsible and human rights compliant manner.