The wokeness behind the AI curtain
“The revolution,” far from being televised, will be algorithmically designed.
The integration of artificial intelligence within the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” will likely bring about swift and significant changes to our social and cultural landscape, surpassing the speed and disruptive impact of the previous industrial revolution.
Quite apart from sci-fi-inspired doomsday scenarios, the most immediate risk of AI threatens to upend how humans understand the world by changing how information is aggregated and disseminated by regulating and reprogramming the internet itself.
The Biden administration has adopted a multi-pronged approach to reverse much of the deregulation of the internet that took place under President Trump and will shape AI policy for years to come.
The administration in July successfully secured voluntary commitments from major Big Tech players including Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and OpenAI, aiming to tap into the immense potential of artificial intelligence.
More recently, Joe Biden signed an executive order to establish new AI safety and security benchmarks. These standards are supposed to prioritize Americans’ privacy, support consumers and workers, encourage innovation and fair competition, strengthen America’s global leadership in the field, and, more ominously, “drive progress in terms of equity and civil rights.”
Finally, the Federal Communications Commission earlier this month advanced its efforts to broaden supervision of the broadband industry. The commission, which is dominated by Biden appointees, approved comprehensive rules addressing “digital discrimination” in accord with the bipartisan infrastructure law of 2021. The law mandates that the FCC establish regulations preventing discrimination in internet access based on income, race, ethnicity, color, religion, or national origin.
By now, it should be evident that “equity” resides at the core of the entire woke project. Much as the Civil Rights Act usurped the U.S. Constitution and forever altered the operations and decision-making of private companies, recent regulations and the collaboration between Big Tech and Big Government on artificial intelligence will change how we obtain information and the scope of information we can access.
The fight against “algorithmic discrimination” fundamentally revolves around determining which interpretation of reality will be programmed and who does the programming. It's crucial to recognize that this undertaking will not be impartial.