The latest dystopian nightmare AI just dropped — and it’s raising a lot of questions that are absolutely NOT answered by its social media announcement.
As The Times of London reports, China’s Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center announced the development of a program featuring « artificial intelligence empowering party-building » last week in a post on Weibo, the country’s second-largest social media platform.
In the lead-up to the Chinese Communist Party’s July 1 anniversary, the Heifei Center said in the since-deleted post’s text, which was transcribed and translated by Radio Free Asia, that its new program would assuage the « problem » of « guaranteeing the quality of party-member activities. »
Translation: this artificial intelligence, though many details remain hazy, can purportedly determine party member loyalty.
« This equipment is a kind of smart ideology, using AI technology to extract and integrate facial expressions, EEG readings and skin conductivity, » RFA‘s translation of the initial Weibo post reads, « making it possible to ascertain the levels of concentration, recognition and mastery of ideological and political education so as to better understand its effectiveness. »
According to the Times, the equipment was tested by reading brain waves and analyzing facial scans while subjects read articles about the CCP, which then translated to a loyalty « score. » And yeah, that’s quite sketchy-sounding.
If this story sets off alarm bells, it does so for good reason — the concept of a mind-reading political AI device that tests one’s loyalty to party and country sounds more like something out of « 1984 » than 2022.
Of course, China doesn’t have a monopoly on ominous AI.