Recently there has been an explosion of commentary in the press and online about the ever-onward march of AI and associated tools. Many good Sci-Fi novels, including The Last Noah, have included the relationship between AI and humanity and the perceived threats from the former to the latter as a central or peripheral theme.

 

One of the more interesting articles I read recently put a somewhat different spin on the subject. An opinion that, disturbingly, could be much nearer the mark. Most of the recent debate has focussed on ‘rogue’ AI getting out of control and imprisoning, controlling or annihilating the human race. But what if the real threat comes more from the arena of rogue human agents – large corporations, governments or criminal organisations perhaps – using powerful AI to manipulate reality and thereby deceive the population into subservience?

 

In his masterpiece 1984, George Orwell depicts a dystopian society where the government uses its civil service to alter the historical record, change language and issue false propaganda to enable totalitarian control of the populace. Orwell had no concept of modern AI tools back in 1948. Using AI to achieve the endgame of Orwell’s Big Brother in a highly streamlined way is frightening – but, disturbingly, this could be much closer than many of us imagine.