In the People’s Republic of China artificial intelligence is allowing the communist party to stay in total control of its population. For China, AI might be the solution to effectively ruling a country made up of almost 20% of the world’s population. As President Xi Jinping intends to spend 150 billion dollars in high-tech to gain global leadership by 2030.
In China Big Data and artificial intelligence are behind insane police surveillance. National-ID checkpoints by trains, shopping malls, mosques etc. can prevent anyone from entering or using a service. These IDs contain your personal information, bank information, legal history, family planning and more. When trying to get on a train, you could be denied, because AI has determined from data on your personal ID that you might be a human rights activist or that you haven't paid your parking fines. Artificial intelligence allows the Chinese regime to know what is going on at the lowest levels and across society. Instead of allowing citizens to demonstrate Xi uses the national IDs to prevent potential troublemakers from ever making it to the capital. Instead he hears about concerns and disturbances from daily social media briefings. China has also been working on a Social Credit System, which is based on their system of national IDs but is supposed to take it even further by giving or subtracting points for every single good or wrong act you do. Basically, China is trying to create a systems of incentives and punishment to slowly control people’s behavior.
Additionally, China is also focusing on applied research in AI technologies to improve its military. To develop unmanned weapons systems and swarm technology, whereby hundreds of individual unmanned drones attack together.
As AI is increasingly becoming a part of China’s authoritarian regime, the country appears to be more centralized than ever. Leaving little hope for its citizens to change the political system.
1 comment:
Xi’s demand for “cyber sovereignty” to increase censorship and have control over the domestic internet shows that the government is using technology to change how the country is being governed. China already has a low level of privacy rights and a government that relies on technological data rather than its people, could lead to some fascinating future developments. The blacklists and reeducation camps that are mentioned, show just how serious these methods are and how technology is starting the play an immense and revolutionary role in government. I am very interested in seeing if the Chinese government will keep using these extreme systems in the future, or if the people of China will voice more opposition to the “digital totalitarian state.”
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