China’s tech advances may well end up ending the conventional Western notions of “freedom and democracy” in the world. Leading Western tech leaders are concerned that the emergence of an AI-powered bloc led by China could completely dominate this century’s geopolitics. US opinion makers and leaders may know that no matter what they say now, the matter could already be over for the West and China. The West led by the US has lost the tech war and the future is more in the East than there.
The big change is coming from the use of AI in controlling information. China has already advanced more than others and is on the verge of making it go large scale. Reports suggest that China believes that controlling dissidence and threats to national security are issues that require such technology use. And China is not about to shy away from doing what it feels it needs to do.
This is creating high level jitters in the Western world. The recent comment by the president of Microsoft, that the all-encompassing surveillance which George Orwell described in his novel, “1984” could be only three years away has grabbed most headlines. He warns that Western politicians need to come to grips with the fact that AI based surveillance is a fact of life now.
What has scared many people is the emotion detecting AI which tells the controllers how people are feeling. Microsoft chief Brad Smith says it’s “difficult to catch up” with ever-advancing AI, which was revealed to being used to scan prisoners’ emotions in China.” It’s the kind of surveillance which the US has run in principle for long but its capacity in the face of China’s growth in technology has fallen behind.
Globally, the notion of a prosperous world is more popular than a free world for almost all. Most people really couldn’t care less about politics because to most, livelihood and security are far more important than political freedom. US’s cold war, the big fight to preserve “global democracy” has been so badly tarnished because of its duplicity that it has made much of what the US says suspicious sounding. The democratic US was the one which said “US or them: and then bombed the Middle East. ” And even today the Covid vaccine piling in the US is happening in the name of democracy and freedom.
It’s true that the idea of total control by one group or power is not a pleasant thought to behold but after several hundred years of slavery and wars in its name , the term “democracy” has lost its shine. People may like it but will also look at its transactional cost. If the standard of living improves, why fight with control?
Current anxiety with China’s AI strides is also not about the poor of the world but the anxious wails of the ruler who is under threat and now appeals to the very subjects for support whom it had oppressed for so long. It’s bad news but inevitable.
