Modern technological innovation has been synonymous with Liberalism and subsequently; Democracy. San Francisco's Silicon Valley has produced more Tech start-ups than any region in the world, dominating and subduing the world of tech for decades. 2030 is a year many nations look to as the year of the fulfillment of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, however, looming over this year of milestones is China, it's ambitions and its insatiable appetite for power and dominance and it has the ultimate tool at its disposal to thwart Silicon Valley's dominance, and bring about the end of a decade's long era.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a tool that is valued by both autocracies and democracies, a tool that has the potential of being misused or abused by both political opposites/rivals. From spyware to data retrieval, AI enables governments to exert more control over its citizens thus increasing the ability of these governments to perpetuate human rights abuses. Amongst all the innovations in the current Tech landscape, AI stands out, according to Harvard Economics Professor David Yang, " AI quite startlingly is the only sector out of the 16 frontier technologies where there’s disproportionately more buyers that are weak democracies and autocracies.” Countries such as Saudi Arabia have extensive AI policies and like China, Saudi Arabia is investing heavily into AI in an effort to become the AI global leader by 2030. Professor Yang does, however, highlight the drawbacks of this which include, "...social media manipulation, digital subversion, and cyber-espionage" all in an effort to erode political opposition, women's rights and criticism of the ruling party/prince. The murkiness of AI regulation exacerbated by the lack of a global AI ethics governing body simply means that in the Wild Wild West that is AI, citizens are not digitally safe and more so in countries that have a record of committing human rights abuses.
China is an economic superpower; however China understands that power vacillates and that domination requires adaptation and foresight. It is for this reason that it has declared its plans to become the Global Leader of AI by 2030 (a seemingly popular goal). On the surface we know that China is one of the leading countries using facial recognition software, a report by the US government ranked the top 5 companies producing the most accurate facial recognition software on the market- all of them were Chinese. The technology can be used to track high-security-risk citizens and potentially stop them from committing crimes. Although the technology poses a threat of privacy to Chinese citizens, the threat is even greater for marginalized groups within China. Known as the Uyghurs, this Turkish ethnic group consists primarily of Muslims and is a marginalized group in China that has suffered at the hands of the "regime". A report by the Human Rights Watch found that, "Chinese authorities have arbitrarily and without due process imprisoned up to one million Turkic Muslims in Xinjiang in political education camps. Others are being held arbitrarily in detention facilities and prisons. This mistreatment amounts to the crimes against humanity of imprisonment and other severe deprivations of physical liberty". In addition to this, the report documents instances of rape, enforced sterilization, torture and more. Surveillance is omnipresent in China, enabling the government to exert more control over its citizens and to gain data on citizens including Ethnic minorities. AI enhances the features and capabilities of surveillance systems; Beijing has become Big Brother. This brother, however, does not treat his siblings equitably, furthermore he has committed crimes as per the Human Rights Commission. AI is only as objective and neutral as the data it receives, if programmers and developers are instructed or influenced to develop AI that targets certain minority groups and if the data input is in any way biased, the result will be a weaponized AI that accurately targets any "enemy" of the state. While the rest of the world fears AI discrimination, the Uyghurs face AI genocide. The development of AI power by China coincides with the increased threat to the Uyghur population and if the West has not been able to end the crimes committed against this group up to this point, one can only imagine the atrocities the Uyghurs will endure at the hands of China and its AI.
Let China sleep for when she wakes she will shake the world- Napoleon Bonaparte. China is wide awake and, in his quest to shake the world, she is leaving the world a wreck for his most marginalized community.
Sources:
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/21/china-ai-world-leader-by-2030.html
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/03/why-china-has-an-edge-on-artificial-intelligence/
