This article by Yuval Noah Harari might be of special interest to those who read his Sapiens and those who discussed 1984. I had some question after finishing Sapiens whether Harari believed that the continuing move toward the unification of humankind meant that liberal values would prevail. He seemed not to commit. Maybe the current worldwide trend toward authoritarianism isn't going to be short-lived after all, especially if new technology gives it a boost. In the article, Harari says that the preference for liberal democracy in the 20th Century depended on the available technology favoring decentralized systems. With AI, dictatorships will find it easy to outcompete diffuse systems because they now can handle immense amounts of data, data that they can require their citizens to give up. The other side of it is that citizens may be happy to give up everything if their lives are made easier and more enjoyable through algorithms. Harari tells us not to worry about AI robots becoming our overlords; it's not likely that robots can escape human control. But the other danger he warns of seems pretty real.

Orwell's telescreens seem primitive by comparison.

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... ny/568330/

As far as dictatorships making use of personal data for control, there's no need to require us to surrender data. The NSA and other intelligence agencies already have all of it - every phone call, text, email, private message, etc.

There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know.
Senator Frank Church 1975
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2013/0 ... you-think/

AI tyranny is already happening with the Chinese Social Credit System, a mass surveillance reputation assessment database with strong punitive powers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System

LanDroid wrote:As far as dictatorships making use of personal data for control, there's no need to require us to surrender data. The NSA and other intelligence agencies already have all of it - every phone call, text, email, private message, etc.

There would be no place to hide. If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know.
Senator Frank Church 1975
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2013/0 ... you-think/

I'm sure your point is well taken, and I may have given the impression that Harari isn't aware of the data that parties already hold on us. Here's what he says about Facebook, Google, etc.:

Rather, by capturing our attention they manage to accumulate immense amounts of data about us, which are worth more than any advertising revenue. We aren’t their customers—we are their product.

Ordinary people will find it very difficult to resist this process. At present, many of us are happy to give away our most valuable asset—our personal data—in exchange for free email services and funny cat videos. But if, later on, ordinary people decide to try to block the flow of data, they are likely to have trouble doing so, especially as they may have come to rely on the network to help them make decisions, and even for their health and physical survival.

My assumption, perhaps a naive one, is that with almost no use of social media, the information I put out will be less than those who are active in s.m. But I leave a trail through online shopping and probably in other ways I never think about.

Harari talks about methods of control through AI that go beyond even what is possible just now (if you haven't read the article), methods that would appear to entail more than surreptitious activity by governments or other agents. That is, citizens would be told they need to comply with certain government data collection projects for the sake of the social welfare. Further loss of freedoms would be exacted.

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Government AI will have to fight, and is fighting, encryption and hackers. I don't know about China, but I have a lot of faith in our hackers. We Americans are an unruly lot. Government IT people work for money and job security. Hackers work for the sheer joy of it. Sure, the government will catch many of them, but all it takes is one worm in the right place at the right time.

Harari's article actually relates closely to Garry Kasparov's approach to human rights, discussed in Winter is Coming, in view of Harari’s mention here of Kasparov’s unique experience as the first world chess champion to be beaten by a computer. See also the linked Atlantic article on the amazing progress of artificial intelligence in playing Go - scary description of supreme alien intelligence from the future, is how it seems to the experts.

Overall, I thought that Harari was too negative about the potential of artificial intelligence. AI will generate enormous productivity, with potential to create the long-hoped for expansion of leisure in conditions of general abundance. What I think will happen is that people will increasingly see that happiness is a product of high education, reinforcing existing trends in that direction, so the resources unlocked by AI will be devoted to expanding human potential, changing our assessment of what is valuable. The technocracy enabled by AI may well undermine current visions of democracy, but has immense potential to do so in a constructive way, limiting the power of the mob to inflict stupid policy. For example, democracies may vote for war, and AI may prevent that occurring.

The thing missing in Harari's article from my point of view was climate change, although he apparently does discuss ecology in 21 Lessons for the 21st century, the source of this article. I disagree with his summary here that

"It is undoubtable that the technological revolutions now gathering momentum will in the next few decades confront humankind with the hardest trials it has yet encountered.”

I don’t think that is undoubtable. AI could deliver positive methods and opportunities to deal with real planetary trials. It is possible that the hardest trials will come from the conflict generated by climate change, and that AI will provide useful instruments to manage these upheavals.

Harari's article is mostly what he writes about in Home Deus