Artificial Confucius Intelligence.
Let’s consider for a moment the liberal international order and for a moment western liberal democracy (WLD).
WLD has undergone a few ‘ali’ like punches in the form of globalization and the oncoming flood of the 4th industrial revolution.
A collectivist mentality to those left of center and interconnectedness as a result of the smartphone in your pocket, facebook, and the insipid news cycle has resulted in increased tribalism and nationalism.
So brings the rise of authoritarianism.
And in the shadows 4th IR technologies, artificial intelligence.
Think for a moment that your phone knows more about you than your friends or parents.
You interact with it more than any other human being, object or entity.
However, you probably haven’t considered that it is this very man-machine interaction in combination with AI that allows governments to potentially watch, monitor, understand and control how you live, work and interact with your environment.
Political scientists have contended that WLD is the only part of the sustained pathway to economic success because all other forms of governance repress their peoples and only WLD has the capacity to liberate peoples unlocking their capacity for creativity to further their economic prosperity.
Pause a moment. I know what your thinking. China and Singapore.
What’s the link with AI?
Well in China, a digital authoritarian in currently in genesis. The selective censorship of the ‘great firewall’ is one such example, whereupon the political preservation of a regime is underpinned by the architecture of connectivity.
Increasing levels of social connectivity mean that governments using AI and IoT technologies are able to censor information and behavior that comprises the architecture of their regimes.
Contending in one of my previous posts the rise of a ‘blue world’ where cooperate is king, organizations such as Google, Facebook and Amazon hold data that can be utilized for social control. These include purchasing behavior, bank transactions, and biometric physical information.
Such information is powerful to train AI systems.
So I ask the question if the state knows how you move, where you move, the interactions and transactions you complete, how would you change your behavior?
Using AI and machine learning you become predictive in your pattern behavior type, believe it or not.
The government can predict your behaviour. More importantly, they can understand how (excuse the pun) ‘robotic’ you become in your actions and how replicative you are potentially in rebelling against the state in your attitudes, values, and beliefs. How likely you are to start a revolution.
On the flip side, it may, however, increase the likelihood of responsible behaviors.
In a strange way, this helps populist authoritarian regimes. In China and Singapore, these Confucius states have catalyzed their authoritarian leaders the power to lead their nations into the what we know them today.
On the assumption that authoritarians act in a benevolent manner, this is a good idea as with more information there is an increased capacity for strong economic planning catering to changes in market forces. Singapore is currently the most interconnected nation in the world. This small nation is primed for globalization. China needs no introduction, as the most economically savvy nation of the 21st century.
On the flipside do increasingly AI integrated digital authoritarian states compromise the sovereignty of the individual, preventing the freedom to speak, publish, assemble and organize in the interest ofpoliticala debate
Stop. Look at your phone. What does your phone know about you? What does the government know about you? I say alot.