Dictatorships Will Be Vulnerable to Algorithms
WiredAI is often considered a threat to democracies and a boon to dictators. In the 20th century, distributed information networks like the USA functioned better than centralized information networks like the USSR, because the human apparatchiks at the center just couldn’t analyze all the information efficiently. If a chatbot on the Russian internet calls it a “war” or mentions the war crimes committed by Russian troops, how could the regime punish that chatbot? A chatbot instructed to adhere to Russian law and values might read that constitution, conclude that freedom of speech is a core Russian value, and criticize the Putin regime for violating that value. How might Russian engineers explain to the chatbot that though the constitution guarantees freedom of speech, the chatbot shouldn’t actually believe the constitution nor should it ever mention the gap between theory and reality?