Daily Times

The most advanced political system of our time is democracy that refers to large swathes of influence in the politics of sociology. Democracy and influence go hand in hand in the modern scientific societies because of the decentralised participation of majority of the masses around the world.

Across the industry, there are ample opportunities and great devolutions because of the flexible progress in technology. But, with these rapid developments in the tech-industrialization of the society, the state has become merely a company, that operates with the same rules and procedures. Moreover, modern democracy and federalism has failed to cure the frustration of scientific societies. Though, these advancements have brought elasticity, and efficiency across various domains of life in the modern society, it also makes it vulnerable.

Today, new technology in the form of artificial intelligence is changing the whole context of market dynamics and has become an easy instrument for hi-tech conglomerates to earn a surplus of profit through shielding. Leading online retailers such as Alibaba, Baidu, Aliexpress, Amazon and Google are frequently use artificial intelligence for their service sector. Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google, recently said that “AI will have a more profound impact than electricity and fire”.

Perhaps, these rapid developments in the technological sector can be termed as a ‘Tectonic shift’. At the moment, scientific societies are more decentralised than they have ever been before; and this decentralization has played a great role in the progress of culture, politics, society and the civilisation as a whole. But the emerging technology with AI is threatening the decentralised state of scientific societies through mergers and monopolies in the emerging sector.

In 2017, tech-giants globally spent $21.8 billion on the merger and the acquisition related to artificial intelligence. The process of acquisition is already happening in the Car industry, with autonomous vehicles startups and ride hailing firms, such as Uber. Moreover, Tesla is also using Artificial intelligence for its new clean energy project in the car industry and inviting  like minded conglomerates to join its venture. The famous social media app Facebook with more than three billion users also remains one step ahead by purchasing WhatsApp and Instagram. Recently, Walmart went for its biggest acquisition, which was worth $16 billion for a 7.7 percent stake in India’s leading online retailer Flipkart.

China also recently introduced a social credit system that has a record of information on all of its citizens — absolute surveillance. In this regard, the vector of China’s influence is increasing in the hi-tech sector and there are approximately 600 AI companies in China that are shaping its digital future

On the contrary, the leading online retailer giants have also stepped up their operations in logistics through mergers, for the shipments programs through artificial intelligence. In 2012, Amazon allowed Chinese businesses to start selling through its marketplace program and in 2017, Amazon alone spent $25 billion on logistics. Moreover, AI will also change the way companies work, by transforming the traditional functions such as supply-chain management, customer service and recruitment. But, with these procurements, AI is expanding beyond tech-sector and might probably give rise to new tech-based surveillance and security architecture.

Although, recent developments in the tech-sector brought has a lot of flexibility across the social domain, but it has also increased the threats to privacy. States can use AI for new security architecture which can pose a direct threat to privacy with its flying wheel effect. Already, several hi-tech companies are using AI to spy on their employees at the workplace. Amazon recently presented a wristband that tracks the hand movements of warehouse workers, this highlights the breach of privacy of the workers. Likewise, for the purpose of ‘Cyber sovereignty’, China has introduced a great Firewall — the Golden Shield, an online surveillance system.

Moreover, China also recently introduced a social credit system that has a record of information on all its citizens-absolute surveillance. In this regard, the vector of China’s influence is increasing in the hi-tech sector and there are approximately 600 AI companies in China that are shaping its digital future. Many East Asian countries have also recently initiated Chinese laws for digital technology- like China a Cyber security bill was recently proposed by the government in Singapore and Vietnam, for digital service providers. Thus, a new generation is coming out of this digital age with AI, as the famous German sociologist Karl Mannheim once said:

“A meaningful generation is also forged by the common experience of trauma that becomes central to its identity, contemporaries become generation, only when they are potentially capable of being sucked into the vortex of social Change”.

On the contrary, AI has not only affected car industries and online retailers, rather it has also transformed the nuclear armament sector with a new cyber-technological command and control system. Both, America and Russia are trying to develop energy weapons based on software programming — indeed, a weapon that is programmed by software is almost impossible to verify.

Arms control experts are worried about the new cyber weapons that could threaten the global security architecture in the near future. This is why, experts are hoping to initiate talks between Russia and America to establish an international measure banning the use of cyber weapons in specific circumstances, such as disabling the adversaries strategic command and control system. But, it is a crude fact that the problem with the nuclear weapon states is their hunger for an incessant modernisation of their nuclear weapons and armed forces; which in turn is threatening the digital future through technological adaptation in the nuclear armament sector.

Moreover, there is a technological orthodoxy in the nuclear sector. In both America and Russia, it is the official proviso that to become a nuclear physicist, you must be politically, socially, religiously and scientifically orthodox. And, if this orthodoxy is maintained with the AI related technological sector, then it will severely impact human civilisation with isolation and absolute control.

Thus, with rapid development in science and technology, human beings are becoming slaves to their own creation and a time will come when machines will replace the notion of God. Moreover, rapid centralisation and development in the tech-sector is giving birth to highly centralised, isolated and reconnaissance societies.

The author is a freelance writer who is interested in history, geopolitics, current affairs, and International political economy. He can be reached on twitter @rahimabbas3

Published in Daily Times, October 10^th 2018.