When I presented the new Chinese Social Credit System 7 years ago, just before the Covid Pandemic, I thought people in the West would react and say: "Not in our backyard!".
I was wrong. The Chinese have made much progress since, adapting the system to make it more acceptable and less absurd. Punishing dissension was the objective not people chewing gum in the wrong place. And in the end, China was successful. They overdid it during the Covid pandemic, softened the system later and now they are done. It works.
And guess what? The whole world is following suit. Everywhere huge database centers are being built to provide AI to everyone (of course) and monitor their every move at the same time. The one being especially compatible with the other. In fact complementary almost like banana and chocolate!
This means practically that the democratic experiment is over as you can now monitor your population in real time. (It doesn't mater if it's now, tomorrow or next year. The implementation will arrive just as day follows night.)
Having built database for the last 25 years, my mind is blown by the new possibilities of AI in this field. The sky is literally the limit and the people will see absolutely nothing. When you see a divergence towards an unwelcome outcome, you will be able to intervene immediately and see the results of what you do instantaneously so that you can increase of modify your action to adjust the outcome. True magic.
The real trick is that you are acting individually thanks to the AIs on each person but do not care whatsoever about each individual outcome since the statistical result is the only one you monitor. This imbalance between individual action and global outcome will give an extraordinary weapon to governments around the world which you can be certain they will use and abuse.
Already most governments and large companies know that by managing "influencers" you can manage a population but this remains relatively broad as a tool. Tomorrow, which means as the new data centers slowly come on-line the ones after the others, they will become more granular. Large influencers, medium ones, smaller ones and eventually absolutely everybody. In fact in the end you do not have anything to do. The AI does both the monitoring and the managing, "back on tracks", job.
Listen once again to the Architect at the end of the Matrix movie. It's all there, 25 years ago. The technology was just not ready then so it was visionary. Now it is.
If you do not care much about "freedom" this is not quite a dystopia... yet. But it can turn into one on short notice. Imagine that the EU suddenly become serious about their 15mn cities. Well, good luck escaping!
Remember the old British series from the 1960s: "The Prisoner"? A nice little village, actually located in Wales (although "The Prisoner" doesn't know where he is).
Well, welcome to the village!
7 years ago I thought the Chinese were on the wrong tracks. I was wrong, they were pioneers.
Life Under China’s Social Credit System: A Dystopian Reality?
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