ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND DATA DICTATORSHIP

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND DATA DICTATORSHIP

14-AUG-ENG 5

RAJIV NAYAN AGRAWAL

ARA---------------------If you are not worried about Artificial Intelligence, then you should be worried. These days Artificial Intelligence is being discussed internationally regarding data dictatorship. When the government and big corporates come together on any technology, then there is a danger of ignoring the interests of the general public. Recently, there has been an agreement between the Government of India's think tank Niti Aayog and Google that both will work together on Artificial Intelligence. After this, Niti Aayog has started developing programs related to Artificial Intelligence and preparing a national program for research. Niti Aayog is developing a national action policy on Artificial Intelligence along with the National Data and Analytics Portal, so that the government can use it widely.

Why and how is Artificial Intelligence dangerous? It is very important to understand how the alliance of government and corporate equipped with data power becomes powerful and dangerous for the general public.

You may remember that when anti-government protests were going on across the country against NRC and CAA, the Home Minister of India had said something in the Parliament and that was about face recognition technology. It is very important to know what face recognition technology is and how it works. What happens is that when the faces of the people present in a crowd are captured in the camera and they are analyzed in a pre-prepared database which is already available with the government and which includes your face, your name, address, date of birth etc., then it becomes very easy to identify you.

Your face present in a crowd is matched with your face collected in the database available with the government and then you are easily identified. You may be thinking that the photo printed on your Aadhaar card or the photo printed on the voter card is not very clear, then how can the government identify you accurately? It is true that the photo printed in the Aadhaar card or voter card you have is not very clear and sharp. Actually this is not completely true. Here the issue is also of printing. Your photo present in the government database is quite clear and distinct, it is just that it has not been printed properly. If you have ever downloaded an Aadhaar card, then you will know that the quality of your photo printed in the Aadhaar card also depends on your printer. Many times you must have noticed a difference in your photo in the Aadhaar card downloaded at different times.

Now suppose you are holding a non-political meeting or a non-political protest. How will the government know whether the people involved in this protest or demonstration are anti-government or in favor of the government? So it will happen that the government will find out whether you are from the anti-government camp or the pro-government camp by analyzing the data sent from the smartphones of all the people present in that meeting or protest.

Let us clarify the matter a little more. How does Google Traffic tell you that there is heavy traffic somewhere and you should change the route? Has Google not installed cameras anywhere? This is just a technology based on the smartphone in your pocket which does this wonder by analyzing the location data of the smartphone.

Technology is not always foolproof. Recently, Simon Weckert of Germany posted a video on YouTube which shows how he managed to 'hack' Google Maps to show virtual traffic jams on the streets of Berlin.

For his experiment, Weckert loaded 99 smartphones running Google Maps in a cart and walked on the streets of Berlin. By analyzing the data of these smartphones, Google started showing traffic jams in the navigation app, which actually did not exist.

Google Maps uses the data of users' smartphones to identify traffic jams. By analyzing speed, location and other congestion data, Google creates a live traffic map of an area or road through an algorithm. Since Weckert drove 99 smartphones simultaneously at a slow speed, Google analyzed that people are walking very slowly there and there is a heavy traffic jam.

In the coming days, the government will also do something similar. Because of your smartphone, the government already knows what your choice is, what kind of news you read, what kind of friends you have, what are your thoughts, what are your needs. Since you have searched for things of your need on your smartphone, read news of your choice, made friends with people of your choice on Facebook and you have liked certain types of posts, which reveals your thoughts.

Now what will the government do is that by analyzing the data received from the smartphones present in a crowd, it will find out what is the ideology of the people present in that crowd, what is the need of the people present in that crowd, what is the status of the people present in that crowd? What did you say? How will it find out the status? Brother, how expensive is the smartphone you have, what do you order on Amazon, how much do you pay for what kind of bills, all these reveal what your status is? In the coming days, by making it mandatory to download a particular app, the government can keep a close eye on you and in this way, the government will be able to decide what action to take against any protest. It will not take even a minute.

Artificial Intelligence can be used for the betterment of humanity but humans will have to find some way to control it. If we are not able to prepare ourselves for its dangers, then this can cause the greatest harm to human civilization. If people do not know or understand its dangers, then corporates and governments can take advantage of it.

Today, when the movement of airplanes around the world is completely dependent on Artificial Intelligence. Which airplane will fly when, which route, where will it deliver the goods, all this is being decided using Artificial Intelligence, then it becomes necessary to seriously consider the dangers of Artificial Intelligence and its regulation.

Despite all the benefits, Artificial Intelligence has its own dangers. We have learned to use fire and electricity, but we still bear its bad aspects even though these are natural. Artificial Intelligence can be used to diagnose diseases like cancer or solve problems related to climate change, but if a way is not found to avoid the inherent risks, it can have serious consequences.