Yuval Noah Harari, in his new book Nexus (Penguin, 2024), says today’s populist leaders nurture the ignorance of the masses with falsehoods and mesmerize the crowds with self-flattering ideologies. They firmly believe, as George Orwell says, ignorance is strength, and objective truth is an abomination.
With the masses to support them, they find it easy to ‘impose order’ in society. A full-fledged democracy may struggle with ‘order,’ but its ‘self-correcting’ organs or institutions, such as the press, media, social observers, intellectuals, critics, universities, and judiciary… suggest solutions. The truth will have a chance to be heard. Democracy seeks to bring balance between Truth and Order.
For Harari, democracy is a conversation with numerous participants. Populist leaders often control the media, courts, and universities, making self-correcting mechanisms dysfunctional. Within democracy, apart from individuals, many associations, organizations, municipalities, and charities come forward to help.
We do not deny that democracies can be tested as it happened during the anti-Establishment protests of the 1960s. Democracy is put to the test again by the insensitive use of computers, smartphones, social media and AI. This is an invitation to a sense of responsibility from digital architects to place these new voices at the service of humanity, for the common good, and shared future. This calls for the right choice between truth and order.
Today we stand before a new set of awesome realities, for which we are hardly prepared. We are bewildered by machines that can make decisions, create new ideas, spread hatred. A new Silicon curtain can divide human society.
COMPUTERS MAKE MAJOR DECISIONS
Computers already make increasingly more financial decisions, dominate the markets, and invent new financial tools. People have begun to follow the ‘computer adviser.’ More than 90% of trading is already done by computers talking to each other (Harari 215).
When we write computer code, we must take responsibility; we are redesigning politics, culture, and society. Even if Facebook, Amazon, Baidu, and Alibaba are subject to us as customers and voters, they shape our whims and tastes. They lobby, influence the government, and throttle regulations. Currencies, bonds, and stocks have become digital entities (Harari 219).
Some norms are fair. Tech giants should pay taxes to countries from which they extract data. We get information from them, but they extract information about our plans, fears, tastes. They have become ‘information-rich.’ Their data should be taxed. Everyone is worried about the elimination of privacy and spread of ‘data colonialism.’ There is a stunning amount of information asymmetry between us and them.
Constructive government surveillance can help to promote health, security and employment. It can spot corrupt officers, tax-evaders; test drinking water, discern illnesses. But ubiquitous computer network can be made to follow every citizen 24 hours a day, which can read millions of pages in a minute. If by mistake a digital device declares a person ‘terrorist,’ he may be killed!
POST-PRIVACY ERA
CCTV cameras can analyse facial features and even the movements of our eyes. So, the post-privacy age has come. In 2023, a billion CCTV cameras were being used worldwide. The police use facial recognition algorithms.
China has introduced the ‘social credit system’ which gives value to a citizen’s good behaviour. It helps him/her to have priority in buying tickets or admission to a university. Judges may inflict harsher sentences if one has a poor record. It fights corruption, false advertising, etc. But you are watched all the time… no privacy, no moment of relaxation. This calls for correction. Privacy is precious.
The AI system should be given instructions to ‘maximize happiness,” not profits, “minimize suffering,” and “protect human rights.” Computers can be racist, misogynist, homophobic, or anti-Semitic, based on the data provided to them. Self-correcting mechanisms are required. If they are fed on falsehoods, prejudices, and myths, we will face consequences. AIs can be set to express doubt, ask questions, and learn from mistakes. Human institutions must monitor them carefully.
All computer suggestions should be evaluated. A team of experts, using AI assistance, can assess algorithmic decisions. Social media need not be made an ‘anarchic public conversation’; parliamentary discussions need not turn chaotic. The other Party members are not enemies. Conversation must be civil.
Dictators can become puppets of algorithms, their tools controlling their decisions. What happens if they make a major mistake? Humanity stands in danger of splitting between two empires. With separate networks and different computer codes, it becomes difficult to interact (e.g., between the US and China). Or few corporations can make the rest of the world their data colonies.
As long as the conversation continues, bondedness can remain. Globalism need not kill nationalism. National and global interests can be balanced. Manipulative algorithms can be avoided. Eagerness of countries to be hegemons can be tamed. Military expenditures can be reduced.
But responsibility must be evoked. Democratic values can be fostered. We can allow ourselves to be manipulated by our creation; they can destroy us. It is our choice. Harari says, the decision we make today will shape the future.
