Flock’s founder and CEO Garrett Langley doesn’t think the risks of introducing surveillance technology at scale outweigh the rewards.

“If we want to live in a society where, if you commit a crime, you have a higher probability of being held accountable, we shouldn’t pause progress,” Langley said, speaking on stage during a panel at TechCrunch Disrupt 2026 in San Francisco on Wednesday.

During the interview, the controversial founder of the surveillance maker of license plate cameras and other recording devices deflected hard questions about the criticism Flock now faces — which has since led to cancelled contracts and even layoffs. Instead, Langley tended to respond to questions with anecdotes from conversations with police chiefs and city leaders across the United States, and tales of the supposed numerous crimes Flock has solved, rather than offer tangible solutions to people’s concerns.

In doing so, Langley positioned Flock as an advance in technology that was somewhat inevitable. He stressed that if people wanted to live in a better society — that is, one with reduced crime — they would have to offer up their privacy in return.

A similar argument about the trade-offs and rewards could be made for AI, which is marketed to the public as vastly improving our lives, automating tedious tasks, and making things more convenient. The flip side is the cost of sharing everything about ourselves with the makers of the AI agents themselves — and the possibility of the destruction of humanity, according to some.

Source link