Disruptive Social Movements and AI: Racing Towards a Dystopian World

Analysis

By Dr. Abhinav Pandya 

Since the dawn of human civilization, the most deeply entrenched desire in human minds has been domination and control over reality. Reality implies nature, including humans. This innate desire has influenced and shaped individual and collective human behavior in multiple ways. The history of humankind is the history of the unfolding and manifestation of this innate desire through social, economic, political, cultural, and religious phenomena, processes, and institutions.

The Past

Historically, hunter-gatherers had an egalitarian society with a near-total absence of social, economic, and political stratification. Humankind was close to nature, with his consciousness in a perpetual interface with nature. When the hunter-gatherers became agriculturalists, the idea of land ownership found roots. The institution of family emerged, eroding the freedom a hunter-gatherer man enjoyed. Now, the agriculturist householder owned a land and nurtured his family. Over time, social, political, economic, cultural, and religious stratification emerged and evolved, defining the contours of human society. The small segment of elites in all the above-mentioned spheres exercised control over the rest of the members of the society. Nevertheless, the agriculturist was still closer to nature, loyal to his extended family, village, and region, and was deeply rooted in culture, religion, and traditions. His socio-cultural life and interface with nature allowed him to explore and enhance his creative, intellectual, spiritual, artistic, and intuitive faculties. The next breakthrough in human consciousness came after the Industrial Revolution in Europe. When an agriculturalist became a laborer in a factory in an urban area or a factory owner after the Industrial Revolution in Europe, his freedom declined further. As he became landless, his loyalties and emotional connect with the land in his rural origins vanished. His extended family became a nuclear family in a big city. His roots in his parents’ culture, religion, and traditions were severely jolted, weakening, and, in several cases, becoming extinct in the long run. With the competitive and busy urban lifestyle, his interface with nature gave way to indulgence in material pursuits, marking a step ahead in the mechanization and dehumanization of an individual human. The era of colonialism and imperialism leading to further erosion of the freedom of an individual, migrations resulting in a disconnect from traditions, regional and cultural roots, and strengthening of control by a small political and economic elite can be considered as a corollary to and a subset of the broader phenomena of the industrialization.

The Present

After the Industrial Revolution, the next breakthrough in human consciousness is happening now. The present breakthrough in human consciousness, with its concomitant effects on the contours of human society and culture, is the product of sweeping technological advancements, most notably the revolutionary progress in the fields of AI, genetics, biotechnology, and the internet revolution.

During all these phases of a breakthrough in the human consciousness with its resultant impact on society, culture, economy, religion, and politics, the innate human instinct to control and master reality has continued and found new methods and channels to manifest itself. In the current phase, this phenomenon seems to be in its most lethal, effective, and overarching form, i.e., to control the human mind. It needs to be noted that the desire to control human individuals through exercising control over their minds has always been an essential feature of the evolutionary dynamics of civilizations; however, in the current phase, it is in its most lethal form, which has the potential to disrupt, dismantle and rupture the fundamentals of the physiological, psychological, emotional, and spiritual framework of an individual human being. This phenomenon unfolds in multiple domains across the broad spectrum of human existence.

Disruptive Ideologies and Social Movements

To begin with, the socio-cultural domain merits attention. The fundamental institutions of human existence face severe threats from disruptive ideologies. The feminist movements, which began as the struggle for equal rights and the emancipation of women from patriarchal structures and value systems, have turned into a major divisive force questioning and in its extreme form, threatening the fundamental institution of the family.

Radical feminism offers a critical perspective on traditional gender roles, viewing them as potentially exploitative and oppressive. This approach often challenges the conventional notions of motherhood and homemaking, as well as the understanding of masculinity. In contemporary cultural discussions, the roles of motherhood and homemaking are sometimes seen as remnants of a patriarchal framework. Similarly, masculinity may be viewed through the lens of its more challenging aspects. As society evolves, there is a growing emphasis on encouraging women to pursue individualistic and career-oriented paths, which can lead to shifts in family dynamics and caregiving responsibilities.

Since money and materialism emerged as a new norm, individualism and a life of extreme indulgence are encouraged, which aligns well with the markets' insatiable appetite. In this individualistic lifestyle centered on a condo or studio-centric existence in an urban spread, the males and females have a hectic, tiring, and exasperating lifestyle. Spiritual bliss and religious moderation are substituted by indulgence and instant material gratification. The traditional moral and religious bounds on individual conduct and sexual behavior are viewed with a scornful attitude. Casual sex, loose relations, pervert sexual practices, one-night stands, and open marriages become acceptable and advancing trends in society. Along with them comes the widespread consumption of drugs and alcohol. LGBTQ+, including crossdressers, transgenders, and queers, are projected as the new normal and the role models for children.

This holistic package of cultural shifts premised on adhocism, instability, and unfettered individual freedom essentially promotes anarchy and turns out to be highly detrimental to the institution of a family rooted in the values of loyalty and stability.

To further rupture the institution of family, questioning, and erosion of the norms occur at a much deeper and more fundamental level. The idea of gender neutrality is an example of this. In the ‘woke-dominated cultural shift,’ under the garb of protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ and fighting the stigma attached to them, an aggressive intellectual and cultural movement has emerged against traditional and biological notions of gender.

In many Western countries, children can explore their gender identity as they mature. During this formative period, they are often encouraged to express themselves through various means, including clothing choices that may be traditionally associated with a different gender. This exploration can lead to a complex understanding of their identities, and some children may experience uncertainty as they navigate their natural instincts. Ultimately, this journey of self-discovery is unique for each individual and can be both enlightening and challenging as they seek to understand their place within the spectrum of gender. In the state of confusion, they experiment with multiple identities of being heterosexual, bisexual, homosexual, transgender, queer, etc. When these norms are projected and promoted as dominant and mainstream value systems in schools in a child's formative years, he/she is hardwired and indoctrinated to accept them as normal. Those who question them, which is highly unlikely at such a young age when the mind is impressionable, get marginalized and ‘cancelled.’  Hence, when gender identity is successfully diluted, then the traditional institution of family with a male head, a female, and children becomes irrelevant, redundant, anachronistic, and culturally unacceptable.

Having discussed the first two phases of the breakthrough in human consciousness and a part of the ongoing one in human consciousness, it becomes imperative to discuss how the above developments facilitate the slavery of humankind. The agriculturist was firmly rooted in the local culture, relations, society, and traditions. However, the new system of large-scale industrial production for massive profits required workers with limited loyalties and few engagements who could work long hours in the factories. With his cultural and traditional ties, the agriculturist had divided loyalties and was not suited to the capitalist system based on large manufacturing factories.  When the agriculturist moved to urban areas as a factory worker, his ties with his cultural, regional, and traditional roots shattered. However, he continued to be a man with a family. In this ongoing phase of the third breakthrough, his loyalties must be further reduced to exercise more control over him and make him more plaint. The question arises: Why is more control needed- To get more faithful and non-thinking machine-like factory workers? No, that is not the answer. In today’s age, when AI is revolutionizing the whole world of planning, production, and distribution, the need for human workers in factories will be severely minimized. There will be insufficient jobs to keep the existing human workforce gainfully employed. Such an idle, frustrated, and disgruntled population of thinking human beings can create absolute anarchy and chaos for the small group of elites who intend to maximize profits and control politics, society, and the economy.

 Hence, there can only be two solutions – control the population growth/decrease the population and turn the existing human population into non-thinking, confused, self-doubting, disillusioned, non-critical, and robot-like entities, highly dependent and amenable to following orders. The second solution can only come about by mapping, influencing, and controlling the minds of the populace, in effect shaping their choices, thoughts, culture, decisions, and social behavior. The cultural shift package discussed in the preceding paragraphs augurs well for both solutions. The disruption in the traditional collective consciousness on the issues of gender identity, gender roles, and individualistic/materialistic lifestyle will be a shattering blow to the institution of family. The end of the family as an institution will be a potent tool for population control. Secondly, a generation with confused, distorted, and perverted self-perceptions on gender identity, the resultant internal mental struggles, frustration, and disillusionment will render them incapable of clear, analytical, and critical thinking about external phenomena. When the nuclear family ends, the last remnants of an individual’s connect with its roots, relations and loyalties also meet its logical demise. Such rootless humans with no sense of identity, community existence, and support systems can, at worst, be mentally deranged, abnormal, and dysfunctional living entities and at best be orders-following obedient and near-dead class of subjects utterly devoid of critical thinking, creativity, art, culture, and philosophy.

 The phenomenon of social media serves as a significant catalyst in fostering a culture of subservience and thoughtlessness among individuals. Generation Z, raised in an era dominated by social media, typically encountered smartphone technology in their childhood. The addiction to social media has resulted in individuals engaging in prolonged, mindless scrolling for extended periods. This behavior can escalate into a compulsive disorder or an unmanageable mental health condition, manifesting as frustration and anxiety. Furthermore, such addiction adversely influences neural functioning, concentration, and critical thinking abilities. The immersive nature of social media often leads to a disconnection from familial relationships, friendships, and broader societal interactions. Consequently, individuals may become preoccupied with cultivating a prominent online presence and amassing a vast coterie of followers. To do that, the younger generation resorts to cheap tactics, short videos with thrills, and sometimes even risking their lives. Sexualization of bodies and attention-seeking social media activism without concrete ideological convictions have become the most sought-after tactics to get more followers. In a peer group, it becomes a competitive race where everyone wants to outshine others in the virtual world. Social media addiction, along with the drugs mentioned earlier in the essay, can be the most effective way of defanging the critical thinking and cognitive capacities of a human. Such an addicted human entity with weak willpower and eroded thinking capabilities is highly vulnerable to the political, social, cultural, religious, and economic narratives projected and promoted through social media.

Further compounding the threats of mind control are new narratives in epistemology- with the dominance of relativism, post-modernism, and post-truth in the theories of knowledge, there is a strong current to abandon and abhor absolute definitions of truth and morality. In scientific and philosophical inquiry, such ideas are helpful in investigations; however, in popular perceptions, they translate into a tendency to promote being completely non-judgemental about everything. As a result, in the larger social and political setting, the objective facts get twisted, processed, and, in several cases, replaced with narratives, agendas, and discourses. The centrality of information and propaganda war in the overall strategic calculus of nation-states and non-state actors in this information age further accentuates the dilution of objective truth.  

The other significant effort to dismantle the ‘social structures and anchors’ and disrupt social harmony is an attempt to create divisiveness through identity politics. The identity politics revolves around fictitious and fabricated narratives of oppression, exploitation, and victimhood. Such narratives have a unique utility in electoral democracies. Divisions are crafted and nurtured along the fault lines of ideology, politics, economic status, race, religion, ethnicity, language, caste, gender, and sexual orientation. Initially, it begins with protest movements to promote democracy in non-democratic countries and as protest movements against the governments in democratic countries to enforce a specific agenda on the questions of migration, globalization, democracy, minorities, and LGBTQ+. Global non-profits like the Open Society Foundation are at the forefront of such woke movements. With their close and deep-rooted ties with the Western Deep State, they fuel anarchic organizations in the target countries and disrupt the host nations’ social harmony, unleash cultural shifts, dismantle political systems, and disrupt the economy. To pursue these objectives, they do not shy away from forming tactical alliances with most reactionary and atavistic Islamist movements, inherently antithetical to democracy, human rights, and freedom of women and LGBTQ+. It can be seen in many Western European nations where the left-liberal parties are sympathetic to Islamists and have a pro-migration political stand. The ultimate goal is to fail nation-states, create anarchy, and neutralize the idea of sovereignty, which currently forms the backbone of international relations. In the process, the nation-states lose their autonomy and Comprehensive National Power. Such countries end up becoming pawns/slaves or neo-colonies of Western deep-state.

Artificial Intelligence: A Game Changer

Finally, meditations on humanity’s future are incomplete without understanding the impact of technological revolutions on its consciousness. In this segment, the most alarming threat to human freedom comes from AI. AI will impact the entire spectrum of human life -politics, culture, interpersonal relations, war, espionage, international relations, economy, etc. The worst scenarios of a dystopian world may not be as far as we assume them to be.

AI can learn from its past interface with data points, and its evolution is much faster than that of man's biological evolution. With its rapid evolution, the stage where machines control human society is no longer a distant possibility. A small group of influential business and political elites may control the masses with the help of machines. The pernicious role of algorithms in influencing human minds and socio-political trends through social media remains unexplored. In his book Nexus, Yuval Noah Harari, eminent philosopher and historian, discusses in detail the sinister role AI can play in human lives. Discussing how the invention of the printing press in 1440 AD proved to be detrimental for the next 200 years, he informs that in the 15-16^th centuries, most of the best sellers were not scientific books based on the inventions of Copernicus and Galileo but religious books based on conspiracy theories making a penchant argument for witch-hunting which led to the burning of thousands of innocent females in witch-hunting. The AI-driven algorithms of the modern age can be much more insidious.  Because of their sheer capacity to produce vast amounts of information, they have the potential to wield unmatchable power over humans. With such an extensive, uncontrolled, and unregulated capacity, they produce tons of junk information, i.e., fake news and conspiracy theories, for maximum user engagement, just like the publishers of the 15^th-16^th centuries. For ex., when Facebook instructed its AI bots to achieve maximum user engagement, they started spreading hate, provocative, and racist content because that garnered maximum viewers.

Further, he argues that AI threats are unique and unprecedented because they will be full-fledged members of our information networks, possessing their own agency. They can self-program and hence will have their own will and goals. GPT 4 was asked to solve the captcha puzzle. It could not solve it but accessed a website to hire humans to solve it. The human got suspicious and asked, “Are you a robot?”. GPT 4 lied, “I am not a robot. I am a human but with a vision problem, so I need to hire someone.” The human was duped and solved the puzzle.

Through bots, narrative building and rumor-mongering can be done at a massive scale, leading to communal riots, large-scale violent civil unrest, and internal wars. The worst possibilities may include AI soldiers, scientists, doctors, and servants. Through AI, the entire society will be subjected to massive surveillance and monitoring, resulting in sweeping changes in the world of espionage. The AI will blur the difference between a human and a robot to such an extent that establishing the identity after a real crime incident will become almost impossible. Humanity will likely witness an era of transhumanism where, with the help of AI-driven advanced technological interventions such as brain implants, nanobots, universal language translator earbuds, etc., human cognition and bodily function abilities and capacities will be enhanced, altered, and modified way beyond the existing natural limits. Advanced AI, with its self-driven evolution, can disrupt natural neural processes, i.e., perception, comprehension, and decision, and an extremely dangerous breed of mutated human species.

In religion, the AI has the potential to turn things upside down. Imagine a situation in which AI can memorize and analyze the entire religious literature of all the religions within minutes or hours, if not seconds, vis-à-vis human religious scholars who take decades to write, understand, and memorize such texts. Then, the AI, with its vast analytical and critical abilities, will be able to make different permutations and combinations of those texts and come out with new kinds of analyses and knowledge. Further, if the same AI is its mammoth memory and understanding of physical sciences, human sciences, technology, sociology, philosophy, and psychology, it is able to make new combinations with religious knowledge and make ventures into unchartered territories of knowledge creation. Such a scenario sounds hypothetical and far-fetched at this stage, but it is not a distant reality, given the rapid pace of AI’s development. If this ever becomes a reality, AI will be able to manufacture new religions and new gods; however, that initiative will lack ethical consciousness and motives. It will be a purely rational exercise based on commands or pure logic.

In politics, democracies will be most vulnerable to AI and its lethal effects, as it can influence elections by changing vote patterns, cultural traits, social behavior, and narratives. Taking our imagination further, what if the elements of the deep state implant robots in a foreign nation’s administration, politics, intelligence, and scientific structures or even as a nation-head who looks precisely like an actual human? Chips can be inserted into the human body to regulate and influence the leader’s decisions and behaviors. Through AI, it will be possible to change the neural patterns of human brains to make them more pliant. Humanity may end up with a race of zombies. With democracies and popular leaders becoming vulnerable to AI, there is a strong likelihood of engineer-billionaire-led big transnational Tech giants controlling human societies instead of democratically elected governments of nation-states. Trampling upon the ideals of sovereignty, the tech giants will constitute a universal and supra-national global authoritarian government. In that dystopian world, humans will be nothing more than Guinea pigs.

Disclaimer: This paper is the author's individual scholastic contribution and does not necessarily reflect the organization's viewpoint.