Digital Divisions: Autocracy & Democracy
Cultures around the world view, adopt and adapt technologies in various ways. Politics, like the arts, is part of culture. When the internet began to scale in the mid 1990’s, mostly in the West first, it was viewed both as a means of strengthening democracy through liberation and as a new commercial landscape. In 1998, China began the development of the Great Fire Wall to safeguard its political and social controls over the population. Now, nearly 25 years later, we are seeing distinct patterns emerge between how democratic and autocratic nations view digital technologies. What might be the implications in the near future?
China sees digital technologies, we can argue, through the lens of societal control and advancement of its ideology at home and on the global stage. Russia has similar views, but rather than the advancement of any particular ideology on the global stage, it is used to disrupt democracies and aid in the Russian dream of empire. Middle Eastern autocracies, like others in Latin America (i.e. Venezuela) and Africa (i.e. Angola) are less capable of using digital technologies for global influence activities but are becoming very good at creating a Surveillance State. Often under the tutelage of China and Russia.
We are in the opening stages of what we might call the Global Digital Divide. Already we are seeing growing geopolitical instability and divides along the lines of values. The West, as Richard Haass, an American diplomat and thought leader on international affairs, is less about geography today and more about shared values. China, Iran, Russia and North Korea are aligning on values. They are working hard to bring along countries like Syria and others into their values system. Digital technologies are playing a vital role.
Even technologies like genetic engineering may be on the table of for this digital race for global superiority. Authoritarian governments are less encumbered by human rights and ethics like democracies. China or Russia could use genetic engineering to do what Hollywood movies love; create super soldiers. Or some variant thereof.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has already been weaponized. Both by the West and autocracies. We should be discussing agreements on the use of AI as weapons the same way we have on nuclear weapons like the SALT treaty. We are not. The same goes for robots. While the UN has issued a charter, authoritarian states have not signed on. Given todays tense geopolitical state of affairs, they are unlikely to. Countries around the world, even Japan, are investing heavily in building up their militaries.
Apple is shifting its manufacturing of iPhones to India from China. That is a decision likely influenced by the White House’ ban on chips technology transfers to China. If China attacked Taiwan, it is likely Western nations would act in concert to bring sanctions on China. Apple doesn’t want to be caught with an inability to build its devices.
In 2019, Russia tested, it says successfully, its own internet in 2019. China has the capacity to cut itself off as well. It has provided other autocracies with such technologies. The Five Eyes countries, an intelligence sharing group formed after WW2 between Canada, UK, USA, Australia and New Zealand, have banned Huawei devices from military procurement and use in civil infrastructure. Israel has come under scrutiny for selling its snooping software, Pegasus to autocratic nations who in turn used it to spy on journalists.
What Might Lie Ahead?
It would be impossible to predict anything precisely. The world has changed drastically in the past year with a lingering pandemic and Russias brutal and pointless war on Ukraine. The EU is bringing insignificant changes to laws around digital technologies and privacy, other Western countries are making similar moves.
What we are likely to see in the coming decade is a Splinternet, where there are multiple closed-off internets between Western-value and autocratic-value nations. This will complicate supply chain logistics and even manufacturing. We are already seeing the return of manufacturing to Western countries, they will rely heavily on Industry 4.0 technologies and approaches with automation and digitisation.
Tech Giants will come under increasing political and regulatory pressure to change their ways from dopamine addiction and dealing with misinformation to mental health. We may see a larger Luddite style rejection of some digital technologies by Western cultures. Tech Giants will face a difficult period to navigate. Crypto is likely to enter a cold, dark winter before it emerges. Because it is so closely tied to crypto, blockchain too will suffer.
We are also likely to see regulations and policies around international data sharing with possible taxations on certain types of data. Technology transfers between democratic and autocratic nations will be either very tightly restricted or cut off altogether. Economic models will change, especially current forms of capitalism.
The only thing I think we can say with certainty, is that our digital world is facing as much turbulence and change as our real world because they’ve become so deeply intertwined. So sit down, buckle up and hold on for a wild ride. For those savvy enough and who see and understand what lies ahead, there are significant money-making and social change opportunities ahead. It is likely that the world will end up being a better place.
