AI is spreading techno-totalitarianism across the planet

Since the launch of ChatGPT in 2022, the subject of artificial intelligence has invaded magazines and TV shows, often with a superficial analysis of its dangers. However, this technological development is not so recent and is already being used by states and businesses to control populations. A short overview of a very real world worthy of a novel by Georges Orwell.

Artificial intelligence and the manipulation of people

Let's start in India, where Narendra Modi's ultra-nationalist party uses the secret application Tek Fog to establish its power and silence its enemies. This app, whose use was denounced by whistleblower Aarthi Sharma, is a war machine capable of automating all the weapons of disinformation warfare on a monumental scale.

Tek Fog AI makes it possible to control Trends (the list of the most discussed topics on social networks), to hack inactive accounts, for example on Whatsapp, to send automatic messages to contacts, etc. Thanks to this app, the Indian BJP party can use private data to pressure leaders, manufacture information and publish a large amount of false information on the channel, or even artificially increase trends causing an increase in tensions between communities^[1]. Tek Fog certainly helped Narendra Modi and his party transform India into one of the greatest dictatorships of our century.

French AI at the service of dictatorships

In Egypt, France provides the computer tools that the regime uses to control and terrorize its people. The Dassault group, Nexa Technologies and a subsidiary of Thales helped the dictatorship of Abdel Fattah Al-Sissi to set up a massive cybersurveillance system: Internet surveillance software called “Cerebro”, a real-time telephone and geolocation device responding to the sweet name of “Cortex Vortex” and a search engine allowing to link the various databases together for the benefit of military intelligence services. of the regime, all under the benevolent eye of the French government always very proud of the noble know-how of “French Tech”.

For example, Cerebro AI would be able “to analyze data to understand the relationships and behavior of suspected people, go back in the past to find relevant information in several billion recorded conversations”, according to a confidential document from Nexa Technologies.^[2]. Perfect for spotting political opponents, overly critical journalists, gay people, and anyone who doesn't think according to the principles promoted by the military dictatorship. At present, nearly 65,000 political opponents are said to be locked up in Egyptian prisons, all with the help of an AI made in France.

A panopticon at the scale of a country

Now let's head to China. With the establishment of cyber control and total surveillance, the Middle Kingdom is a master at using AI for the purposes of mass control and repression, so much so that some researchers do not hesitate to talk about AI-Tocracy^[3].

Concretely, to quell the protests, the Chinese regime is deploying AI-boosted facial recognition, allowing it to easily find its opponents. As for the association of Big Data with artificial intelligence, it allowed the deployment of a closed Internet entirely controlled by the Chinese Communist Party.^[4]. This global cybersurveillance is called “Golden Shield”, an almost poetic name that encompasses 170 million interconnected smart cameras, databases with immediate access to the identification files of each citizen, the blocking of certain websites, filtering by keywords, filtering by keywords, monitoring emails or discussion forums.^[5].

AI and mass massacres

In the war in the Middle East, artificial intelligence is being used on a large scale by the Israeli army to kill. At first, the AI called “Lavender” automatically designates targets that are supposed to be Hamas activists (up to 37,000 Palestinians marked as alleged militants), and the army does not bother with human control to make up for machine errors. Some soldiers even admit to spending only about 20 seconds checking each target before authorizing a bombing. The next step is to determine where the targeted people live. The AI “Where's Daddy? ” (Where is dad? , a very cynical name) identifies the moment when the “target” returns home, and all that's left is for the Israeli army to start the bombing, usually with inaccurate bombs that cause enormous “collateral damage”.^[6] ”.

Israel has therefore massacred thousands of families, women, children, men who sometimes had no connection with Hamas, with the help of artificial intelligence. Murders are automated, and murderers are operators behind their screens.

Cop everywhere

France is not left out. The National Family Allowances Fund (CAF) or France Travail (new name of Pôle Emploi) use artificial intelligence to sift through the data of beneficiaries, starting with the poorest, to track down potential fraudsters. These algorithms delve into the lives of millions of people (nearly one French person out of two would be concerned), from marital status to consumer habits, with a vast cross-section of data that smacks of the Chinese system and completely dehumanizes individuals^[7].

In the city of Orléans, the town hall is experimenting with new “optimal surveillance” cameras that combine image sensors and sound sensors. Thanks to AI, any suspicious noise automatically causes the camera to be oriented towards the source: a fight, a broken glass, too loud music, all these sounds of daily life can point to you, in the eyes of the AI, as a potential source of trouble.^[8]. As we already know, these ultra-intrusive devices will be multiplied on the occasion of the Paris Olympics, with our leaders taking advantage of the event to remove the last obstacles to the widespread deployment of citizen surveillance by AI.

Unfortunately, these few examples are just a drop in the ocean of widespread policing made possible by AI, and we don't cover all the other problems associated with artificial intelligence. It would take an entire book to chronicle the ongoing massive deployment of AI. It colonizes all sectors from employment to the environment. To conclude, there is no such thing as socially and politically neutral AI. Its deployment cannot give birth to anything other than a totalitarian society. Our only solution is to stop this technological monster as quickly as possible by targeting the infrastructure that allows it to exist and grow.

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