Are we minutes away from an AI-led Global Political Technocracy?

One of Friedrich Hayek’s most prominent ideas is that socialism can only be attractive insofar as central planning is practical. And in Hayek’s time, it was understood that optimal central planning was not only unfeasible, but unimaginable. A single entity replicating the market–its production, pricing, and hiring levels in response to dispersed and decentralised knowledge–is an enormously complicated task.

However, in the age of digital spending, widespread data surveillance, and especially artificial intelligence tools, enormously complicated tasks are becoming more manageable by the second. Technology has the potential to correct the knowledge deficit identified by Hayek, and it seems like only a matter of time before comprehensive central planning is totally possible. 

It is no longer inconceivable for governments or corporations to exert influence via aggregated digital information. In China, the social credit system leverages vast amounts of data to enforce government restrictions across economic, social, and political dimensions. The Cambridge Analytica scandal in Western democracies displayed the power of political microtargeting based on online tracking. These examples suggest that the logistical barriers to centralised economic control are no longer insurmountable. 

But does this mean we’re minutes away from an AI-led Global Political Technocracy (GPT, perhaps)? Not exactly.

While Hayek may no longer be correct in thinking that effective central planning cannot be done, he is still correct in thinking that it should not be done. There are few things scarier than a government agency with the power to manipulate markets based on complete knowledge of individual consumers and their preferences. Even with the new ability to replicate the localised information provided by transactions in a typical market, this agency would be equally able to decide to nudge consumers towards new behaviors–perhaps those that are more favorable to the political party in power at the time, or those that are considered more “moral” or “correct”. The temptation to steer citizens using sophisticated algorithms risks substituting market flexibility for rigid paternalism: utterly dehumanising, even if efficient in a sense.

“To be controlled in our economic pursuits,” Hayek aptly observed, “means to be … controlled in everything.”

This is not to say that capitalism requires opposition to new technologies; in fact, tech can improve the effectiveness of markets just as it can improve the effectiveness of government intervention. Blockchain has opened the door to secure, transparent, yet decentralised currency. Gig platforms allow labor supply to meet demand more effectively than ever before. Prediction markets often outperform respected analysts. Digital tools can empower entrepreneurs to address their consumers’ needs better, faster, and more locally. Technology is a tool that will indiscriminately strengthen its wielder, whether the invisible hand of the free market or the white-knuckled fists of the political elite.

The danger is not in technology itself, but in politicians and bureaucrats using it as a disguise for good-old-fashioned control, packaged as efficiency, fairness, or safety. As Hayek warned, the Road to Serfdom is paved with good intentions–and now, perhaps, with good data. But capitalism will survive the digital age as long as we let technology reinforce freedom, not replace it.

Corrigan Peters

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