Hey friends, I’ve got something scary to share with you today. Like, apocalyptic, futuristic dystopia-level scary. But this isn’t fiction – it’s happening right now.
Governments are teaming up with universities and organisations to develop powerful AI systems capable of monitoring and censoring online content across the entire internet. I’m talking about AI algorithms with enough computing power to constantly scan everything we say and do online.
And based on what this AI deems “unacceptable”, it can then censor and shut down websites, social media accounts, bank accounts – pretty much anything connected to the internet. Post a tweet the AI doesn’t like? Say goodbye to your ability to buy groceries or access your college email.
Now I know what you’re thinking – “But surely they’ll only use this to protect us from truly dangerous stuff like terror recruiting or child exploitation?”
Here’s the scary part: The documents show these AI censorship tools are intended for infinitely broader and more nefarious purposes than just public safety. They explicitly talk about using the AI systems to “externalise censorship” and push “responsibility for difficult judgments” about what speech to allow onto someone outside the platforms.
In other words – the government gets to decide what we can and can’t say online, without having to be transparent or accountable for those decisions. It’s a dystopian level of speech control.
Maybe you think “Well, I’ve got nothing to hide, so I’ve got nothing to fear from this AI monitoring everything I do online.” But imagine if the government decided it didn’t like your hobby, hobby group, or style of gaming. A few lines of code, and that hobby could get you flagged as a potential threat and blocked from huge swaths of the internet.
All without any human making a conscious decision – just machine learning algorithms trained on the government’s biases about what kinds of interests and opinions are “acceptable”. Terrifying.
The documents also suggest this AI censorship could become a commercialised, monetised operation. So big corporations could pay to use these tools to crush communities or conversations that threaten their profits.
I don’t know about you, but to me this sounds like one of the most existential threats to human rights and freedom of expression we’ve ever faced. A handful of powerful groups having automated control over what information and ideas we’re allowed to access or discuss online.
Maybe there’s still time to reverse course on this Orwellian nightmare. But we need to get loud about protecting a free and open internet before it’s too late.
