AI Isn’t Going to Cut Government Bureaucracy — It’s Going to Vastly Worsen It
This move raises concerns about privacy and the misuse of personal data. It could have significant implications for the future of public services and government operations. Critics argue that this approach prioritizes efficiency over accountability and transparency. The impact on citizens and their rights must be carefully considered in the implementation of this new system.
In recent weeks, hundreds of foreign students in the U.S. have received emails from the Department of State informing them that they must leave the country. This “catch and revoke” program is being used to cancel the visas of students who have participated in forms of pro-Palestinian activism the government doesn’t approve of, which may include merely reading or posting certain kinds of content on social media.
Thus, in little over a decade, we have gone from social media being touted as a weapon to topple dictators (recall the “Twitter revolutions” of the Arab Spring in the early 2010s) to a tool of mass surveillance that authoritarian governments can use to silence dissent.
Artificial Bureaucratic Intelligence (ABI)
While artificial general intelligence (AGI) remains a fantasy peddled by the right-wing tech oligarchy, we are now witnessing the creation of what I would call artificial bureaucratic intelligence (ABI). ABI is emerging as an autonomous agent dedicated to the rigid and mindless implementation of administrative procedure.
As thousands of government workers are dismissed from their jobs, it appears that the plan is to replace them with some form of ABI, which will act as the interface between government (or what’s left of it) and the public. ABI is a “killer app,” because bureaucracy is the one area where failure, inefficiency and arbitrariness are features, not bugs.
The Emergence of ABI
In 1979, Sen. Eugene McCarthy said that “an efficient bureaucracy is the greatest threat to liberty,” and ABI is poised to become the most effective bureaucrat ever. That’s because an AI bureaucrat won’t be distracted by a desire to flex its power or line its pockets — its sole purpose will be to follow instructions, no matter how disastrous the results.
We are already seeing hints of how this could work. In addition to catch and revoke, ABI implementations have been announced to identify government workers who can be fired and immigrants who can be deported. LGBTQ+ people and women seeking information about abortions have also been identified as targets of high tech surveillance.
ABI and Its Implications
ABI might be initially used to go after populations unjustly considered to be a threat to national security. But as history has shown us, the definition of who or what constitutes a threat can be easily expanded to include anyone, from unionized public and private sector workers, to teachers, Muslims, BLM activists or people on welfare.
ABI will act as judge, jury and executioner, carrying out a fascist agenda against anyone who dares question authority. With the help of Big Tech, ABI could be instituted rather rapidly, since it is clear that the Trump administration is not necessarily interested in accomplishing things through democratic means.
Data and ABI
ABI is the result of decades of public sector defunding and neoliberal deregulation by both Republicans and Democrats. Tech companies have benefitted from this deregulation, but since their stocks have fallen sharply since Trump assumed power, they are now desperate for opportunities to monetize their overvalued AI technologies, and ABI represents just that.
Still, for all of this to work, one thing is needed, the one thing ABI cannot function without: our data. And since ABI needs lots of it to work, we must follow the data (not just the money) to understand why we can expect colonialist data policies to continue to be an essential part of this system.
HONESTAI ANALYSIS
As we continue to watch the Trump administration dismantle crucial public institutions, and as we work to not just take back but to remake our democracy, we must keep in mind that ABI systems designed in the name of efficiency, calculability, predictability and control are, and will always be, anti-democratic and inhumane.