"Chinese citizens signing up for the wildly popular multiplayer shooter game Counter Strike Global Offensive must register using both their national ID and Sesame Credit score, according to state media outlet CGTN, and anyone caught using cheating software like ‘Aimbots’ which ensure perfect aim will have their Sesame Credit scores deducted, potentially affecting their real-life ability to get loans."<p>Valve knowingly allows its cheat countermeasures to impact human lives in this way? I'd like to hear their response to this claim.
The problem with these sorts of systems, both those backed by technology and those backed by old-fashioned prejudice, is that it exerts an upward force on those who are already on top while simultaneously pushing downwards on those who are on the bottom. Each of the examples listed here have this effect: having a high credit score means you get cheaper healthcare, have more opportunities to find a well-off partner, don't need to pay deposits on car rentals, get to travel, etc. It seems as though if you're on top, you're going to stay there, meanwhile if you're on the bottom, you're going to stay there also.<p>What I'd like to know, as an American sitting literally a world away from the people under this system, is to what extent wealth and influence purchase a high social credit score? Some factors are obvious: those with more money are less likely to incur debts, for instance. But what about connections to administrators? I imagine there isn't a politician in all of China who doesn't magically have a sterling social credit score.<p>I wonder whether the net result is a society in which a high standing resulting from material and social wealth leads to perks that in turn lead to more material and social wealth.
Under such a system, what happens to an individual if errors are made?<p>If you have 1000 million citizens, your social credit computation better have a sub-ppm false positive rate, or else you risk ostracizing thousands of innocent people.<p>Maybe on the whole it's worth it for the Chinese government.<p>Also, I wonder if increasing adoption of this system will create a black market of 'score hackers', people that try to fuzz the algo's into giving free or cheap social credit....
There's a chinese girl in my russian class, so I asked her about it. She thought it was a great idea so people can't leave without paying their debts, and can't get further into debt.
for some reason i haven't seen many people discuss china as a totalitarian country.<p>but is there really any doubt, at this point? the government seeks to control an ever-greater range of human behaviors, from the banal -- like borrowing an umbrella -- to the political.<p>it's unclear to me whether the chinese people want this sort of system for whatever reason or whether it's being forced onto them. what is clear to me is that this system would warrant a prompt and violent revolution if a similar implementation was attempted here.<p>once these systems take root, become normalized, and start to change the way that people behave, a society's chance at freedom is finished...
Tangentially related, the Daniel Suarez sequel novel, Freedom(TM) presents a similar scenario. People will have a rating system based on their interactions with others (think eBay) and you can see that rating. Four stars out of a base of 81 interactions - from the postman to your boss. I have a hunch that China's generally compliant, anti-antagonistic society, makes the Chinese system easier to implement. In a western country, I think it would turn south really, really quickly and for much worse.
Sesame Credit really creeps me out, but give it a few years and you'll see LifeHacker articles on "10 Ways to Raise Your Sesame Credit Score!"