Twitter’s recent ban on Donald Trump and announcements on WhatsApp’s data policies have suddenly woken up Indians to the hard truth that dependence on foreign social media is a national security threat. But, even now, the full scope of the issue is not being properly understood. The debate is being framed largely in the context of the politics of the Left versus the Right, with the ban seen as a Left-wing conspiracy against Trump. Sadly, many otherwise intelligent public voices have ignored the larger problem that India has become a social media colony of the United States.
The foundation of this blindness is Indians’ lack of understanding of the far-reaching impact of artificial intelligence and the role of public and private data as the key driver of this technology. Indians must urgently understand that AI is a weapon that amplifies the mind in good or bad ways, depending on its usage. There is nothing ‘Left’ or’ Right’ about the fact that intelligence is used against others, and AI is merely a force multiplier. India’s vulnerability to AI is not limited to ‘Left-wing’ multinationals.
During the past few years, when I was finalising my book that just got launched a few days back, Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Power, I tried to argue with many public intellectuals that every time they click something on social media, the machine learning systems of the tech giants makes an entry in the individual’s profile. What each person likes, dislikes, the comments, and posts—each is useful raw data in carrying out what is called sentiment analysis. What are the individual’s sentiments towards brands, politics, spiritual positions, ideologies, social issues and so forth? This allows the platform to customise the messages selected to be sent, be they posts, advertising, or what have you. Every engagement by the consumer enhances the AI system’s model of the person’s behaviour. This model becomes smarter over time to predict and even reshape behavior through manipulation.
This cognitive mapping of millions of people’s emotions, likes, dislikes, preferences and vulnerabilities is taking place by recording their activities in a variety of formats including voice, text, images, handwriting, biometrics, buying habits, interpersonal communications, and so on. AI researchers make these predictive models not only for individuals, but also for communities, cultures and nations. Such models are used to anticipate reactions and manipulate or influence groups by leveraging their own distinctive habits or tendencies. These psychological profiles weaponise the social media platforms into a means for manipulating any individual’s private psychology. And for what purpose? For the benefit of whomever, or whatever, is in control of the platform. The beneficiary could be the digital platform itself, such as Twitter, Facebook or Google, or their commercial clients—advertisers, political candidates, or anyone else willing to pay to influence a target audience.
Facebook, YouTube and Twitter freely deliver a wide range of user experiences that consumers find difficult to resist. Facebook’s strategy reinforces people’s emotional cravings and distracts them from realising that they are enthusiastically giving away intimate knowledge, and hence transferring power to the digital platform. Most users do not realise this and would rather not know the long-term implications of gratifying their social needs online.
With such immense power vested in foreign corporations, the anti-India groups whom I have called breaking-India forces, are becoming more organized to use AI for their goals to psychologically divide Indians into hostile camps that fight each other and the country at large. Artificial Intelligence is a force multiplier that can be used to undermine the unity of the rashtra, of political parties, and of communities by encouraging the flare ups of fragments. Deep learning of individual behavior can be combined with fake news to manipulate psychology and public opinion. This has serious national security implications.
Yet, Indian thought leaders continue to live in ignorance and denial. Despite all these risks, Indians are not overly worried that foreign digital platforms will end up having too much emotional control over hundreds of millions of people. Artificial Intelligence is insufficiently understood by India’s social scientists, government officials, legal experts, and education leaders. Ironically, India’s public intellectuals—social media celebrities, the blaring mainstream media voices, and political debaters—are heavily invested in supporting the digital media platforms that are recolonising India. They build their popularity and boast their identities sitting on foreign platforms that are a fake foundation with strings being pulled from faraway places.
In contrast, China banned foreign social media to build its own digital ecosystem. India, on the other hand, is proud of being one of the largest consumers of US social media and has welcomed them with open arms. India is for sale!
A sudden stampede has started in India to play catch-up. While this wake-up call is welcome, is it going far enough?
Rajiv Malhotra is the author of many bestsellers. His latest book ‘Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Power’ is summarised at www.AIandPower.com. The views expressed are personal.