Daily Times

As per Edward Said’s Orientalism, the Imperialist nations took technical superiority as a matter of right to conquer and rule over the lesser technical nations. This raised a clear-cut divide between the colonizer and the colonized.

A similar spirit has prevailed over the ages. And so only a few nations progressed and achieved the highest standards of life in terms of industrial progress and prevailed in the international market also. The same technical and industrial advantage has privileged these nations to perpetuate their superiority and control over the lesser developed ones, though not in the sense of physical colonization.

The twenty-first century is the age of uniquely different technology including industrial as well as soft skills in the shape of internet-based computer technology and artificial intelligence which is shaping the world and is creating multiple divides among the people of the world. It is being touted that only the individuals equipped with the technical skills of the age would survive the machine revolution induced by artificial intelligence.

This power of control over artificial intelligence is likely to replace natural intelligence if not altogether, at least it would generate another struggle for survival. This very struggle again perpetuates the right to rule the rooster for only those who would control this technology. It is rather a new mode of colonization whereby one does not need to physically assault the nations and people but only through modern technology the minds and behaviors can not only be controlled but also monitored.

The intra-nation power manages very successfully as to which group is to be given open access to the sources and which should be denied access.

This neocolonization in the age of artificial intelligence is based mainly on techno-politics how much and when is to be shared with the less developed nation so that a clear difference may keep on persisting between the haves and have-nots of the technology.

The situation becomes more alarming because with a speedier process the technologies, Human resources and raw materials possessed by the South especially are going to become redundant and they will have to look to the technologically advanced nation for a re-ignition of their economic engines and so digital slavery of the new kind would be established.

For example, climate change is forcing the world to run battery/electricity-based motor vehicles, which would make the entire oil-based economies with their related businesses redundant and obsolete. The same would be witnessed in almost all other departments of life. Here again, the big brothers (Orwellian) would decide which nation should be given how much share and when and consequently the technical advancement though claimed to be equally shared for the greater good of humanity would be employed by the capitalists or the manipulators to keep a control over the use and efficiency of the technology.

The similar control is visible not only from outside but also indigenously. The intra-nation power groups are capable of controlling 21st-century technical facilities, which affords a new type of control and techno-politics.

The intra-nation power manages very successfully as to which group is to be given open access to the sources and which should be denied access. Similarly, the new age of artificial intelligence is strengthening the power inside and outside both in manipulating the proliferation and controlling of business. New technologies are being employed to play techno-politics as well.

The rapidly spreading environmental degradation in both the poles of the world is forcing a significant shift from traditional modes of generating money to smart technologies. This is being emphasized to shift to new technology to keep ecological systems safe for humanity. And so, these technologies are now being sold to the already poorer nations to upgrade their systems. Here again supply of and shift to new modes of technology help to induce techno-politics of the world systems in the hands of a few wealthy, powerful and technically strong nations.

But the worst part of techno-politics is the colonization of mind that the modern tools of artificial intelligence can be used to generate a specifically designed agenda and make it successful in diverting the opinion of the people as and when desired.

Consequently, techno-politics is again another expression of footprints and signposts of post-colonialism which means that the decolonization of minds would never occur and the world power stage would keep on controlling and managing the world as and when they desire. In terms of finances, much of the business is gradually being shifted to internet-based technologies like Artificial Intelligence and people can earn good money but the same can be exercised to manage and contain the use of such technologies.

This can be witnessed in the shape of occasional halts that online workers have to face when 21st-century smart technologies undergo load shedding as a part of techno-politics. All these advances have united hands to produce a global totalitarian infrastructure and yet all this remains hidden behind the impenetrable wall of techno-politics.

The writer is a professor of English at Government Emerson University, Multan. He can be reached at zeadogar@hotmail.com and Tweets at @Profzee