1984: AI, Big Tech, Government Surveillance, propaganda and control

 By Sicebise Msengana 

After reading "1984", I realised that its author, George Orwell, predicted what will happen in a high tech world. The book is set in a totalitarian state called Oceania, where the government, led by the Party, controls every aspect its population. The novel explores themes of manipulation, surveillance and consequences of an absolute dictatorship.

The story follows the protagonist, Winston Smith, who works for the Party and struggles with its oppressive regime. As well as his rebellion against the Party and love affair with Julia, another Party member.  As they incite disobedience and opposition against the Party, such as hiding and engaging in a forbidden relationship. Unfortunately, they meet a man named O'Brien who claims to be against the Party. But betrays them. Winston is captured,  tortured and brainwashed. "1984" is a dystopian piece of literature that shows a man's journey from being a rebel with a cause to an obedient follower of the Party and entity of the  state, led by the "Big Brother."

Could "1984" accurately predicted surveillance, propaganda and repression of individual freedom in the 21th century? It all began in World War II when the Allies wanted to broke the military secret codes of the Nazis and the internet was born. Surveillance and control is happening even here in South Africa. Take for example, RICA. The government is recording and monitoring our calls, messages and online activities on our phones!

There's this book called, "Surveillance Valley" which I read some time in 2014 explains why, noting the creator of Silk Road on the dark web got arrested through the use of Spyware. The book's findings, that High tech Spyware is disproportionately clustered in these big tech companies, especially "big five" such as Facebook, Microsoft, Apple, Amazon and Google in Silicon Valley. They gather our personal information and sell it to the US government. Oracle owned by Larry Ellison, is the biggest database company in the world. What does the company deal with our personal information? Oracle has multimillion dollar contracts with the CIA, NSA, Homeland Security and other secret service agencies. What happened to Edward Snow, Chelsea Manning and, Julian of Wikileaks? It's all part of the intelligence/secret service conspiracy to track our movements on the internet. The worldwide web is bugged by the CIA and NSA.

Let's get a background information on NSA. The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collection, and processing of information and data for foreign and domestic intelligence and counterintelligence purposes, specializing in a discipline known as signals intelligence (SIGINT). The NSA is also tasked with the protection of U.S. communications networks and information systems.[8][9] The NSA relies on a variety of measures to accomplish its mission, the majority of which are clandestine.[10] The existence of the NSA was not revealed until 1975. The NSA has roughly 32,000 employees.[11]

Originating as a unit to decipher coded communications in World War II, it was officially formed as the NSA by President Harry S. Truman in 1952. Between then and the end of the Cold War, it became the largest of the U.S. intelligence organizations in terms of personnel and budget, but information available as of 2013 indicates that the CIA pulled ahead in this regard, with a budget of $14.7 billion.[6][12] The NSA currently conducts worldwide mass data collection and has been known to physically bug electronic systems as one method to this end.[13] The NSA is also alleged to have been behind such attack software as Stuxnet, which severely damaged Iran's nuclear program.[14][15] The NSA, alongside the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), maintains a physical presence in many countries across the globe; the CIA/NSA joint Special Collection Service (a highly classified intelligence team) inserts eavesdropping devices in high value targets (such as presidential palaces or embassies). SCS collection tactics allegedly encompass "close surveillance, burglary, wiretapping, [and] breaking and entering".[16][17]

Unlike the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), both of which specialize primarily in foreign human espionage, the NSA does not publicly conduct human-source intelligence gathering. The NSA is entrusted with providing assistance to, and the coordination of, SIGINT elements for other government organizations – which are prevented by law from engaging in such activities on their own.[18] As part of these responsibilities, the agency has a co-located organization called the Central Security Service (CSS), which facilitates cooperation between the NSA and other U.S. defense cryptanalysis components. To further ensure streamlined communication between the signals intelligence community divisions, the NSA Director simultaneously serves as the Commander of the United States Cyber Command and as Chief of the Central Security Service.

The NSA's actions have been a matter of political controversy on several occasions, including its spying on anti–Vietnam War leaders and the agency's participation in economic espionage. In 2013, the NSA had many of its secret surveillance programs revealed to the public by Edward Snowden, a former NSA contractor. According to the leaked documents, the NSA intercepts and stores the communications of over a billion people worldwide, including United States citizens. The documents also revealed the NSA tracks hundreds of millions of people's movements using cellphones' metadata. Internationally, research has pointed to the NSA's ability to surveil the domestic Internet traffic of foreign countries through "boomerang routing".[19]

One can't help but recognize the link between the tech world and government agencies for world control and domination. Then Artificial Intelligence (AI) entered the chat room in the past decade. Technologies such as AI are emerging and dominating the tech world. Biggest tech companies in the world are also benefitting from the buzz about AI so much that Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon and Nvidia have made hundreds of billions of dollars from AI stock and transcended into trillion dollar empires.

Learning about Artificial Intelligence was crucial to my blogging, writing and research I knew one day that I would rely on (AI) for my book 📙 writing and articles (proofreading, editing etc.) It is helpful to know that AI is classified into three main types:
* Artificial narrow intelligence (ANI), which has a narrow range of abilities.
* Artificial general intelligence (AGI), which is on par with human capabilities.
* Artificial superintelligence (ASI), which is more capable than a human. It is also called Trans-AI, a hybrid cyber- physical techno human intelligence.

AI together with Deep Learning, Machine Learning, Data Science Learning, are ushering automation and robotics to build an AI world. This trans disciplinary science and engineering is in favour of creating intelligent machines, as complementing augmented human intelligence. To an extent of emulating, mimicking, simulating or replicating human intelligence, body, behaviour and brains.

My personal opinion is that AI is cool technology, but its ethical/moral complications for society. The so-called 4th industrial revolution is an AI/machine revolution. These sci-fi movies like I, Robot, Terminator "predicted" the rise of these intelligent machines. Tech giants and oligarchs are just waiting for the perfect opportunity to capitalize and maximize profits from AI. Also, after reading the "Surveillance Valley", it was an eye opener for me. Every technology invented by these people is used for dominance. I wouldn't be surprised if this AI hasn't already found its way to educational,  military (war), economic, medical, entertainment industry, political and intelligence agencies.