Cyber- a word which came to the fore publicly in 1980s has been echoed in this century by adding its key characteristics with either security or communication engineering. However, a simple definition of the word remains the same, it denotes the computer system, which is connected to a network or networks to create “cyberspace” where data can be collected, stored and analysed.
However, in this age of artificial intelligence (AI), cyberspace has got immense attention due to mainly three key reasons, first, AI with the help of machine learning (ML) can create cyberspace where individuals’ economic, social and political data can be gathered, analysed and then used to target that individual for either social, economic or political engineering. Second, key stakeholders like tech companies or states can use that data for their own economic or political agenda. Third, the data would have been used to persecute or discriminate one individual over another based on gender, race, nationality, religion, affiliation, etc.
Hence, the idea of a cyber state emerged where the states can use their digital authority to manage the sentiments of the public by imposing three Fs (Fear, Friction and Flooding). For example, Chinese researchers and scientists are well aware that, they are being watched all the time, their connection to the outside world is also restricted through firewalls to some extent and then, and the pro-regime research disrupts significantly their way of independent thinking and rationalization of the events.
The opportunity cost of being online all the time is the loss of personal data whether it’s emotional, social, economic or political.
In this era of AI, all individuals are under observation in some way either through street cameras (CCTVs with AI capability), laptops, mobile phones or any other digital gadgets they have. So, it is not feasible to function and progress without being digitally available. Hence, the opportunity cost of being online all the time is the loss of personal data whether it’s emotional, social, economic or political. This data would be used in the cyber state to implement the policies (social, economic and political), which not only reduce the power of human agency in the democratic regimes but, to a larger extent, diminish the role of human “gut feeling” in all the arenas of human life whether social, economic, judicial or political.
“Data is the new oil” was the phrase narrated by the famous mathematician-Clive Humby has been correctly realized in this era. In the previous generations, commodity or service was the core of economic circulation but, in the 21st century, data replaces those two completely. It is also evident from the generation of data globally as, data generation has grown more than five times than the 2018 global statistics, as it was 33 zettabytes in 2018 and now, it has been exceeding to more than 150 zettabytes. In a similar vein, the business analytics market is expected to grow by more than 500 Billion USD in 2026. This all suggests that the power of GAFAM (Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft) is going to increase by many folds in the future. The best example of their power can be illustrated through Facebook’s look-like modelling where the similar patterns and behaviors of more than 2 billion users of Facebook can be analyzed quite instantly.
Hence, I suggest that the globe is rallying fast towards a “Cyber” state in which, the duality of surveillance, the surveillance of major tech companies through their vast array of networks and data brokers even and second, the surveillance of the state would play a major role in deciding the future of their respective public whether its social, economic, political or otherwise spheres. For example, you are a common person using social media platforms and posting about your opinion, qualifications, experience, etc. All the data along with the meta-data (where the data is generated, which device, country, etc. data about the data) would provide enough insight about your thinking pattern, your likes, your dislikes even the likes and dislikes of your friends and their friends as well. This web-like structural data is then either used for economic or political purposes or even sold to data brokers, where that data is used to produce brands or services for the targeted population in question or influence their voting preference. Individual agency and its power of discretion have been given quite a lot of importance and attention in the past two centuries but, this century may dent or even completely erode the concept of free will and individual human agency. In the cyber state, the data which is the new economic, social and political commodity would be used by the two major stakeholders of the future (Tech giants and state governments) to remain in the arena of power by reinforcing each other interests cyclically.
Human rights, individual privacy, individual freedom, and free-thinking would be the talks of the past in the cyber state as those two stakeholders would monitor even your single pulse as that may define whether you are the proponent or the opponent of the current powers in place. The free tech technology would take all those above-mentioned standards even interestingly with your consent (e.g. I agree on individual websites) and then leave you hollow inside at the end. The cyber state would be 100% democratic but, without democracy in place, all the opinions and ideas are ushered into your heads through the AI-backed intelligent machines. Hence, even the laws enacted like an AI Act enacted by Europeans recently and even future laws in a similar domain would not be able to save global humanity from the darker side of free technology and its intricate webs.
Therefore, we all must think and stand up today for ourselves in order to push the political actors to develop the mechanism through which, individual data and privacy can be taken into account seriously and rigorously while allowing the free technology developers to introduce their platforms to the wider public and make trillions of dollars through the breach of individual privacy and freedom.
The writer is a researcher and a peer reviewer of over three internationally-recognized academic journals.