“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
This is the First Amendment and may be what undoes liberal democracies. Worse still, the Supreme Court has interpreted “freedom of speech” too broadly, including the use of money, as free speech.
It has become increasingly clear to me that this is a severe vulnerability that is being exploited in the United States and around the world.
On June 6, the State Department's senior official for digital and cyber policy, Nate Fick, said, Tell Audience at an event hosted by The Washington Post:
“I don't think most American citizens really understand how much of the content they see on social media platforms is actually a foreign intelligence operation… I don't think we deeply understand how much of what we see is generated by bots or generated by foreign intelligence services.
I have no doubt that this is true, and there is a growing fear that much of what I see – and perhaps even the things I believe – have been hijacked by these groups.
Seeing the tools available with AI and robotics, I think it is now trivial to create a robot farm. If I were an anti-American Russian doing this, I would not have written “Mother Russia is Great.” The goal would have been to sow division, raise the volume on any issue, and incite American hatred toward other Americans.
Divide and conquer.
I also believe that Russia sees itself as a victim of this game, whether it is right or wrong. They believe the Euromaidan rallies in Ukraine – which were organized via social media – were a US influence operation.
On Friday, Reuters published an incredible story. During the peak of the pandemic, the United States was running an online operation to discredit the Chinese vaccine in the Philippines and ultimately vaccines in general, putting thousands of lives at risk, and the Philippines had among the worst vaccination rates in Southeast Asia.
It was part of a petty fight after China began a “disinformation campaign to falsely blame the United States for the spread of Covid-19,” according to the report.
If the United States is willing to do this in the Philippines, what should it do elsewhere?
After Euromaidan, the Russians became determined to get revenge, which is why the Internet Research Agency — founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin — was working in the 2016 US election. I think the Russians were amazed at how well it worked, and so did the rest of the world. The goal is not to make up stories, but to stir up conspiracies and make people angry.
Given the State Department's comments, the United States knows its target. Heather Cox Richardson books About her earlier this week:
Officials from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) told lawmakers that Russian influence operations aimed at undermining support for Ukraine and trust in democratic institutions pose the greatest threat to the upcoming U.S. election. China poses the second biggest threat but is more cautious because it fears negative reactions from the United States, while Iran acts primarily as an “agent of chaos” in an attempt to confuse voters. Office of the Director of National Intelligence officials said they had issued warnings to political candidates, government officials and others targeted by foreign groups.
This brings us back to freedom of expression. This type of campaign would be almost impossible to stop. Democrats love to spread false rumors about Republicans and vice versa. Anyone who tries to stop the rumors will be seen as partisan or disloyal. It is this win-at-all-costs mentality that puts the party ahead of the country.
The AI will overcharge this. There will be individually optimized campaigns based on your data, which create videos and ads that target you personally to make you unhappy and angry.
Yes, some robot farms will be closed but 10 more will be created. I don't see any way to stop it. The First Amendment is written in stone and social media platforms are open, anonymous and up for sale.
What can we do? Ban online anonymity? That would be very unpopular. Are we going to a censored and walled internet like China? This is completely inconsistent with the Constitution and freedom in general.
For markets, instability will inevitably lead to conflict and division; None of them can be beneficial for growth.
