The Drive for Perfection: A Precursor for Algorithmic-Authoritarianism

Maslic, A.D. (2020). The Drive for Perfection: A Precursor for Algorithmic-Authoritarianism. IAMCR Conference, Tampere Finland, 2020

Abstract

We are at the forefront of inevitable impacts already tangible worldwide of how technology is shaping our future. The article initially investigated this through observations of technology based, robotic and algorithmic driven art installations. The aspiration for technological perfection and the ambition to eliminate mistakes has a lesser understood dark side.

I pose the term “machine-fascism”, which relates to an attitude and a general culture of dismissing criticism as an irrelevant negative obstacle or simply as trivial neglectable scorn towards an evolution of technology. This lack of criticism results increasingly in rendering technological inventions emotionless and pushing it into a dehumanized level of perfection. Umberto Eco described 14 characteristics to help identifying fascism in authoritarian regimes (Eco, 2010, pp. 65–88). At least 6 of those can be recognized to a certain degree in interpreting the mechanisms of how technologies are advancing as will be addressed in the article. Seemingly innocent strive for perfection is usually considered as an admirable ambition that can be explained through a different vista, as inherently problematic at its core as it undermines patterns of natural evolutionary processes. When technology was predominantly an exercise in mechanics it could be considered a benign aspect of progress. This caused hardly ramifications other than a projected level of quality. However, the shifting focus towards inter-connectivity in a networked society should be reevaluated in the light of increased algorithmic independence resulting in machine authority and automatized decision making. Technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) are pushing boundaries of automatized systems that increasingly impose elevated levels of control over each and everyone’s lives. Reflecting possible impacts of this new form of authority is essential to investigate, before we as a society, handover mechanism of control. A further point of interest is how governments are getting seduced by start-up companies developing AI and its specific application into tools of control. How these algorithmic processes affect aspects of human rights, democracy, distribution of power and civilization as a whole are not fully understood yet, but indications reveal that erosion of certain freedoms and rights are already occurring. The article is using speculative reasoning as methodology, as it is not possible to measure probable future consequences this implementation of rapid developing technologies seems to enforce. However, we can already identify how this tech consolidates authoritarian regimes worldwide and how it invokes media manipulation, resulting in electoral subterfuge and a deluge of other unforeseeable implications undermining the freedom of one’s own thoughts and ultimately one’s mind.

Keywords: Machine-Fascism, Artificial Intelligence, Algorithmic-Authoritarianism, Artists, New Media Art.

An Ominous Advantage

This article is focusing horizontally on the role of the technology industry as an instrumental tool for emerging leaders with authoritarian political ambitions. Intended is to connect some unlikely dots while sketching a roadmap of how technology is utilized in enforcing political power. First, I like to stress that technology has many applications both positive and negative, which can be employed and developed to support scientific research, knowledge production, consumables, communication, transportation, space exploration, the military apparatus, weapons, energy and so on. Unfortunately, the effects of using technology for political means, like elections, political communication, law enforcement, intelligence, and so on, ultimately translates in power and control. These governing powers, if not controlled by a strong constitution supported by an autonomous judicial system, could result in a decline of human rights, loss of equality, and is often a direct attack on freedom and liberty of citizens of a country. This usually manifests through an increased precariousness among weaker constituents within a society, which generates deep societal polarization, prompts a rapidly shifting ideology often to the right of the political spectrum, which usually is communicated through a populist rhetoric. Eventually this will give rise to an accumulation of authority and power into the hands of individuals linked increasingly with authoritarian methods, infused by often concealed but effectual racist ambitions (Edsall, 2020). To be clear it is not technology itself to blame for this, as it is merely a tool, but the people who spend money to employ technology to aid them reaching their goals, usually supported by a tech industry more interested in financial gains and interests than in moral or ethical societal consequences, intentionally or not. I will provide some examples of this later. 

Around the world, societies ubiquitously reveal through their dynamics and capacity as fast-changing environments that the role of new technologies progressively and irreversibly contributes in shaping political and social life in previously unimaginable ways. The pace of change is fueled by technological innovations and developments that are incremental accelerating. This makes it firstly difficult to keep track on short term effects, and secondly impossible to thoroughly research all the impacts that are possibly caused by this accelerating technological proliferation. Simply the time it takes to execute a research is often superannuated as the rapid implementation of technology continuously saturates and penetrates society at all levels and in all depths, rapidly. Additionally, it is worth to mention that technology usually is impetuously promoted without much criticism or academic reflection. Expressions such as ‘state of the art’ and ‘progress’ are all too often hyperbolically connected to technology in its presentation, both commercial and academically without much thought of its implications. This somehow generates a widening societal and academic blind spot refrained from structured or institutional control or in-depth reflection. This can easily be exploited by opportunistic leaders with authoritarian ambitions who frequently lack in merit, a moral compass, or political integrity by taking their chances. They eagerly explore the potentials of existing and newly developed technology, often infused with Artificial Intelligence (AI), to rapidly conquer power positions all over the world. Surprisingly frequent and not coincidental these emerging forces are operating at the far right of the political spectrum where they enjoy less criticism. The democratic mechanisms, usually in place for a long time[1], seems failing in identifying and in filtering out some of the processes that gives these leaders an unequivocal advantage in their grab of power. These emerging unconventional political mechanisms at play are designed to move so fast that it is difficult for deeply informed criticism to catch up with facts to be communicated to the larger public before significant damage is caused. The strategy is to stay ahead of the game and to move as fast as possible.

Conveniently Operating within a Nefarious Void

The use of social media by subversive actors, the ones that seek political power, is supported by institutes, organization and even nation states that are operating from within the shadow, have weaponized social media to egregiously achieve political goals (Farkas, 2017). Further it is worth to note that many of the utilized political supportive tech industry practices operate at the fringe of the law, are intentionally obfuscating through non-transparency, deliberately hidden from the public view and the media, and intentionally designed to avoid or bypass legislative restrictions. Whenever one of those intentionally concealed occurrences leak into the media, it is instantly marked as fake news or lies by assumed political opponents, galvanizing and ultimately promoting a post-truth society, purposely spreading doubt on objectivity and verifiability. An example is the anti-scientific stance promulgated and actively enforced by Donald Trump throughout his presidency (Quigley et al., 2020), eliminating funding and consequentially derailing empirical criticism. The most effective of these processes are operating in the political murky grey zones (the political twilight), which were and are still frequently protected by promoting free market policies (Peck, 2010) and other capitalist treaties undermining and even dismantling democratic institutions and foundations (Klein, 2008). It is worth to research the underlying support systems that are helping these often-populist leaders. Questions that could be asked are which tools and channels of communication are employed by these aspiring autocrats to promote themselves, as Twitter was the obvious tool for spreading feigned and venomous rhetoric by Donald Trump for instance, or which corporations are directly benefiting from Trumps power position? Could this political support network be identified to divulge the platforms and technological knowledge, but also the people and the tools to describe and expose the causes for their political and financial advantage? The scandal with Cambridge Analytica and Facebook was just one example of this (Cadwalladr, 2018). But before we dive into this, it would be good to look briefly at the past and to see which political inclinations or motives could be allocated to the rise of authoritarian, totalitarian[2] and fascist leaders. The tools they used in the past and the parallels that can be found with the current proliferation of emerging autocrats are strikingly similar in its designed and operative mechanisms.

The Rise of Global Autocracies

Emerging autocrats are proliferating on a global scale, and it seems that a specific existing political ideology of any particular country does not necessarily influence this process. To exemplify the diversity, I like to point out leaders like Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Jair Bolsonaro from liberal countries like respectively the US, the UK and Brazil; or leaders from European transitional illiberal countries like Victor Orban or Aleksandar Vučić from respectively Hungary and Serbia; or democratic Islamic countries like Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan or Egypt’s Abdel Fattah El-Sisi; or (former) communist countries like Russia’s Vladimir Putin or China’s Xi Jinping; or the officially secular republic of India with Narendra Modi just to name a few. I could go on as the list is growing rapidly each year. What all those leaders have in common is an unabridged ambition to accumulate power often bypassing or nullifying constitutions or democratic principles. To them, media is considered a powerful tool and alliance, which should be restricted and preferably fully controlled. Everything published outside their controlled flows of information and manipulated news, as it is regurgitated through their supportive media channel’s echo-chambers (Jamieson & Cappella, 2010), is often branded as ‘fake news’(Bump, 2018). Simplistically phrased, these leaders can be understood as a new generation of autocrats who are increasingly using oppression technology (Rød & Weidmann, 2015) as a tool of power, control of communication and information, and interpreted through the lens of human rights as a mechanism of intentional oppression of weaker groups and minorities. I propose an assumption to compare these new forms of leadership as a new form of fascism reinforced by its utilization of oppression technology, better expressed as ‘algorithmic-authoritarianism’. The question comes to mind if innovation in technology will lead to concentration of power contributing directly to consolidation of nefarious regimes with ‘fascist’ aspirations. I intentionally use here the term ‘fascist’.

The World through the Lens of Eco’s Ur-Fascism

Fascism was elaborately defined by Umberto Eco, in his essay” Ur-Fascism” of 1995 (Eco, 2010). Eco identifies pivotal characteristics of fascism which are shared among fascist regimes. He emphasizes that fascism is a rather complex collection of criteria, which varies widely among the fascist regimes and only the relative shared characteristics could lead to a loosely collection of definitions that can be used to identify if a system is fascist or has fascist proclivities. He provides fourteen criteria that can identify fascist characteristics and mentions that even one of those can form the seeds to grow a full-blown fascist ideology (ibid, 1995).

Abbreviated, Eco’s characteristics to identify fascism (Eco, 1995, pp. 65–88):

  1. “The cult of tradition”. A form of cultural syncretism, but intolerant to people with different beliefs of opinions, which contradicts.
  2. “Traditionalism”, or the “rejection of modernism”. Contradicts in vanity with the conviction of possessing industrial superiority.
  3. “Irrationalism”. Action-oriented, which results in anti-intellectualism and anti-science.
  4. Intolerance to criticism. “Dissent is betrayal” and should be eradicated.
  5. “Fear of difference”, resulting in intolerance to ‘intruders’, e.g. immigrants, defining ‘the’ others as a target.
  6. “Appeal to the frustrated middle class”. Communicated via a populist rhetoric.
  7. “Obsession with conspiracies”. Defining the ‘other’ as enemy, inducing xenophobia.
  8. Mark their identified enemies simultaneously as “too strong and too weak” in an irrational assessment through their rhetoric.
  9. Pacifism conspires with the enemy, as “life is permanent war”. Agenda-setting for war. Antagonizing pacifist opponents as weak, and treacherous.
  10. “Scorn for the weak”. Presenting the masses as part of the popular elite, for example “the best people in the world”, claiming superiority over others.
  11. Promoting “the cult of death”. “Everyone is a hero”, and Eco exemplifies this by mentioning “an impatience to die”, which results mostly in other’s deaths.
  12. Promotion of ‘Machismo’, resulting in misogynist contempt for women, and a bigot hate towards different sexual orientated people from the LGBTQ+ communities.
  13. “Qualitative populism”. A pretense that the population shares a common will, which is interpreted by the leader, which in reality is dictated to the people. Anti-democratic.
  14. “newspeak”, an active effort to impoverish the vocabular, to curtail critical reasoning, criticism and dissent.  

When we observe the aforementioned leaders through the lens of Eco’s criteria, they would fit seamlessly with many of them without exceptions. No surprises there. But when we look at many technology companies who are supporting these leaders, often start-ups, observed through the lens of Eco’s characteristics of Ur-Fascism, then we could easily recognize several of the mechanisms that play a significant role in how exactly these companies operate The used technology could consequentially be described as indispensable tools instrumentally employed in actively contributing to this new wave of a global reawakening of neo-fascism in an increasingly volatile world, prepared by a turbulent decade of crisis and hardship (Gattinara et al., 2013; Robinson & Barrera, 2012). These emerging technology companies[3] all share a systematic approach of developing tech, undermining democratic processes. They are providing tools capable to rigorously use data, to eliminate criticism, to enforce control, and above all to build mechanisms intended to consolidate their patrons’ power positions, subsequently helping authoritarianism and fascism to gain solid ground and to remain in power. The tradeoff for this disregard of ethics and critical self-reflection culminates in the design of societal destabilizing and polarizing tech, compensated with a promise of growth and affluence. This increasingly appears to be a common attitude among young startup tech entrepreneurs who consider the aspects of ethics and societal implications the territory of academics rather than their personal responsibility[4]. It seems that strong regulation and legislation is needed, which often is fairly underregulated or even completely non-regulated. Causes for this can be found that policy makers have not much to no knowledge at all about the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) industry and its technological mechanisms, let alone understand the implication of this rapid developing territory. A clear example of this was the hearing of Mark Zuckerberg from Facebook in the Senate Committee Hearing in 2018 in the US. Byers from CNN commented that most senators who were asking questions had no idea how Facebook fundamentally worked, and it was clear that American Lawmakers were completely illiterate when it comes to 21st Century Technology (Byers, 2018). Thus, the policymakers were not equipped to do their job, and this is really a core problem, not exclusively of the US, but throughout the world. It creates conditions which allows technology to be used in harmful ways, easily being developed, unrestricted and unregulated to gain power or political advantage by cunning opportunist individuals who perfectly understand the power these tools possess and how to utilize them. As a result, start-up ICT companies are eager to jump the bandwagon to create businesses regardless what the societal impacts will be. The lack of regulation protects them and allows to these companies to proliferate and diversify the working territory and additionally obviously to generate fast profits.  

Extended Control by Building a Digital Panopticon

The surveillance industry is another obvious instrument of control. Also in that domain counts that all levels of internal or external criticism are put aside to prioritize business incentives and ultimately financial interests, which can be described as one of the factors directly contributing to surveillance capitalism, a term coined by Shoshana Zuboff (Zuboff, 2019). Surveillance technology is developed, ubiquitously installed at a mass scale which provides the perfect digital panopticon (Manokha, 2018). These massive systems can easily be used to curb political opponents to eliminate criticism and dissent, like protestors or political dissidents or symbolically to simply change and direct the behavior of a whole population. This can be achieved by constructing an apparatus intended to instill fear of repercussions, which leads to self-censorship and blind obedience without actual coercion, which is one of Eco’s criteria of fascism. The companies that are developing these tools are directly responsible for building this new dystopian reality as can be clearly identified in China, where numerous tech companies are building an omnipresent mass surveillance system. This system is combining old and new advanced technologies into one ubiquitous surveillance machinery where mobile phones are scanned and tracked, where a pervasive security camera network is interconnected and integrated with AI and facial recognition, linked to fingerprint sensors, retinal scanners and vocal recorders, installed in the majority of public places (Leibold & Dirks, 2020; Mozur & Krolik, 2019). Additionally, a massive project is in process of involuntarily collecting DNA of a large percentage of the male population (Wee, 2020). A biotech company Thermo Fisher, based in the US, specialized in genetics testing kits, is selling these to the police throughout China to be used as a “male ancestry inspection system”, disregarding their responsibility of any ethical consequences of how their tech is used (ibid. 2020). In the US a private company called Clearview is developing a facial recognition system that trolled the internet to collect, without consent three billion portraits of mostly users of social media and hundreds other digital platforms and websites. The service of facial recognition is then offered commercially to law and order, the police, and banks to track criminals. Clearly this service can perfectly be used to identify political opponents or government subversive dissidents to eliminate dissent. The CEO Hoan Ton-That is known for being closely connected and funded by far-right, alt-right and white supremacist political investors (Hill, 2020). Fear and self-censorship are becoming the norm in areas where this technology is in place, resulting in a total abolishment of constructive criticism, a very familiar process of power abuse. Ostensibly everything seems fine externally, until you scratch a little under the surface where fear, anxiety and self-imposed ignorance are prevalent. “Real power is fear”, was the sentence expressed by Donald Trump in March 2016 before he was elected, making his intended vison of governing excruciatingly clear (Boucheron, 2020). These four words are pivotal to understand the real meaning of power abuse. The ICT tools that could help him to achieve his questionable objective is increasingly coming to surface. It is clear that the internet is the ideal platform to realize autocratic fantasies. It made it possible to shape public opinion by identifying and isolating political opponents to eliminate dissent and to suppress defiance. Monitoring ICT users, who are likely the urbanized, intellectual and political elites, creates immediate information advantages for autocratic leaders (Rød & Weidmann, 2015). Through these tools the outcomes of elections can be influenced, which is a guaranteed process of dismantling democracy. ICT has the potential to be used as a tool for repression and manipulation. It is therefore essential to develop a mechanism to instantly identify authority abuse and ill-intended political incentives. Legislation and laws formulated by people who do possess the knowledge of the used technologies is imperative to mitigate this risk.

Machine-Fascism

The term ‘machine’ in machine-fascism is dualistic and refers here firstly as a metaphorical interpretation of what a ‘machine’ really represents. In this case a mechanism or a system that has many components and if everything works as designed, then it fully operates automatized. It is a force of production. In machine-fascism it is the production of a political transformation to a new fascist interpretation of autocracy following the definitions given by Umberto Eco of the precise characteristics of how to identify fascism in a political ideology. Machine-fascism especially alludes to this mechanism of transition, the apparatus to change a liberal democracy into a neo-fascist ideology. It describes the triangulated mutual relationship between (aspiring) autocrat leaders, alt-right or ultra-right financial sources in the form of investors and organizations or even state institutes who support this clause with a hi-tech ICT industrial branch who provide the technological tools to do this as fast as possible. These three components are interrelated connected, and when broken apart the machine will fail. Second is the more literary interpretation of ‘machine’. As a device that transmits a force or directs its application. It refers here to the machinery of technology as an immanent force that entails its power to change a substance. In this case the substance is the political dynamics that govern a country, its communication channels that make this possible, and its algorithmic code that is written to target an active effort to change the unsuspicious minds of a majority of the population, and in this process create polarization, confusion and chaos. Machine-fascism is destructive, its intended to dismantle democracy and destabilize society. As Naomi Klein explained in her excellent book ‘Shock Doctrine’ that when chaos is all around, the majority will not pay attention on what leaders are actually doing in the shadows in a country in a state of turmoil (Klein, 2008). They can change the law overnight, or further hollow out a country’s constitution and will receive little to no resistance or criticism as everyone will be focuses on the chaos. A situation that reminds a lot on what is happening right now in 2020 in the US with the Black Live Matters chaotic protests. Could the police violence be intentionally designed and have been part of this mechanism? Trump follows these rules accurately to wreak havoc in the US, it creates this void, in Klein’s words, this moment of “shock doctrine” where things can happen in the background while everybody is focusing attention on the chaos. Which brings us back to machine-fascism, which ultimately means a process of forceful changing society towards an autocratic nightmare. Machine-fascism also refers to the companies who are building consciously the tools for algorithmic-authoritarianism and are ultimately responsible for the decline of stability and downfall of an economy due to greed and a lack of ethical conscience.  

Corporate Funded Techno Art, a Method to Eliminate Crucial Societal Criticism.

The aforementioned processes of how the technology industry is contributing to machine-fascism are not unique to the political arena. On a smaller scale one can observe the root of these mechanisms in action. When visiting large corporate funded new media art events, and we analyze the individual artworks exhibited, often an unheimlich atmosphere of machine perfection surrounds those artworks. Usually the productions are extensive, heavily sponsored by large corporations, and flawlessly executed in lavish materials and sumptuous flashy presentations, infused with complex and expensive custom designed technology. Often the concepts behind those works are superficial and meagre at best. The level of admiration is created by scale, opulence and ornamental aesthetics rather than by process-oriented concept development or a critical sociopolitical conscience. It is clear that these works of art are lacking self-reflective criticism and are not explorative or critical reflecting the world in all its complexity. They usually lack a critical opinion about: politics; the role of technology; corporatism or consumerism; the commoditization of art; but also are usually refrained from comments on controversial businesses who funded the artists or events like: the oil, pharmaceutical or tobacco industry, or technological industries connected to pollution, sweatshops, surveillance and so on. It seems that the moment when artists are entrenched within this technological industrial complex, critical thinking diminishes radically. The lack of criticisms by corporate sponsored artists echo in a similar manner the demonization of whistleblowers like Edward Snowden or Chelsey Manning and seems to be rooted in a plausible fear of retaliation to be ostracized or ejected from funding, opportunities and ultimately livelihood (Anvari et al., 2019). As a result, artworks turn frequently into technology-propaganda, promoting indirect the corporations who funds them. These corporations produce products that usually are associated with a symbolic image of perfection, which is understandable and reasonable, as it guarantees their market position at the top tier of producers. However, perfection has a sinister side. Natural evolution is a process build on imperfections that open up new possibilities for further development. Art is developing along a similar evolutionary trajectory and occasionally the best works of art were failed experiments. By eliminating the chance of error, through the drive for perfection, development will gradually come to a stand, a hypothetical equilibrium where dynamics and movements are slowed down to a bare minimum, where ‘chance’ is eliminated, and where a creative process of ‘evolution’ is canceled out. This would result in a state of stasis, where nothing noteworthy would happen, and subsequently cultural evolution would come to an end. This of course, is pure speculative and theoretical, and reality will never follow this line of thinking. However, it is worth to take into consideration that when funding is channeled by stakeholders who do not appreciate to be critically scrutinized, a system might start behaving in an authoritarian manner, not unlike the autocrats aversion on criticism, which is the fourth criteria of fascism according to Eco. The more artists and corporations are interdependent connected, the more a system start to behave like a machine-fascist mechanism. Corporate patronage eliminates the freedom to speak out and obstructs crucial razor-sharp opinions of critical analyzing society, politics and its economics. Dynamic processes of how a society moves are censored through a channeling of financial resources to loyalist tech-oriented artists who lose a critical edge to independently reflect corporate or industrial entities or questionable governments who supports them, who additionally utilize them as an obvious tool for corporate or political propaganda. Art in a healthy society should function as an instrument of uncompromised criticism, forming a reflective mechanism as guardians of a fair society, embracing equality and human rights, and more recently ecological awareness. Financial independence is the only way that can guarantee this. Blending the arts with a corporate bias often cultivates and promotes a neo-liberal political ideology, which can easily lead to an unquestioned support for this new form of machine-fascism. If we allow that to happen is really the key-issue, we should be concerned about. Artists working in the domain of new media art, who are blending art and technology should be extra vigilant to not compromise their critical societal position in exchange for financial compensation to support this machine-fascist beast, whose tentacles are increasingly getting a solid grip on people’s minds. If these artists go along in their moral compromise of what is ethical are subsequentially active responsible to contribute to this emerging fascist proliferation. This let them lose their critical voice, credibility and trust as important independent guardians, safeguarding ethics and political integrity though societal introspection and reflection for a fair and inclusive, equal society for everyone.

References

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[1] This refers to mostly regions positioned and recognized as western nations. Exceptions of course are countries in transition like for instance east European nations, which formerly were under the auspicen of the USSR, and changed somewhere in the 90’s their political and ideological bearings. Some of them never developed into liberal democracies and are slowly transitioning into illiberal autocracies. (cases of Serbia and Hungary)

[2] I include totalitarianism here, which is arguably to excessive to mention here. I use the definition of totalitarianism provided by Hannah Arendt, where she describes a definite segregation between the masses versus the elite as a symptom of totalitarianism, where rulers claims total control. Autocracy when not bounded, might evolve into full blown totalitarianism and should be mentioned here, as it is positioned on the most extreme side of the political continuum, and should function as contextual reference (Arendt, 1973).

[3]  These tech companies work mostly with data collection, large datasets and AI, Social Media and opinion making, surveillance and control technology, facial recognition, and so on. All are working hard to construct reality supporting and promoting the ideas of this rapid emerging leaders.

[4] Information regarding this issue has been collected through several conversations with employers from within the tech industry, who preferred to remain anonymous.