THG 31: Conspiracy Theories Around George Soros, the Tragic Story of Venezuela, Scary Theory of Techno-authoritarianism and Harari on AI-induced Financial Disaster

One video and two great reads

If you’ve noted, THG Recommendation episodes are getting less frequent lately. That is largely because I’m struggling to gain literacy in the AV medium and experimenting with the video content in my Youtube channel. Once I am better there, THG posts will be more frequent.

So, this post starts with my first feature-length fact-checking video. (For the time being, my videos are in Nepali language only but hope to make some in English soon.)

The most fertile ground for anti-Soros conspiracy theories in the world now? You guessed it right: South Asia, mostly India.

Nepal being a neighbor with India on three sides, to repeat a cliche, a flu in New Delhi cannot pass without a cold in Kathmandu. Nepali youtubers have keenly followed the footsteps of the noisy Indian television anchors and youtubers in a race to present George Soros as the secret malevolent power ruling the entire world.

So here is part 1 of my fact-checking one such video from a US-based Nepali youtuber. I plan to deal with the larger question of the evolving media ecosystem in Nepal in part 2.

Next, here is an insightful piece from The Free Press about the ongoing tragedy in Venezuela amid the unending economic crisis:

Black Humor in ‘Communist Fat Camp’

Not long before I left Venezuela for good, my friend Ernesto was robbed at gunpoint on a busy street in Caracas. He was at an ATM and felt a gun shoved into his back. “Take everything out of your bank account,” a gruff voice behind him demanded. “Any stupidity from you and I’ll put a bullet through your spine and you’ll never walk again.”

Ernesto took a deep breath. Every Venezuelan knows what to do in these circumstances. It’s drilled into you from childhood, one of the many lessons you have to learn if you want to survive in Caracas. He gave them what they wanted, and hoped for the best.

When he turned to see his assailants making an unhurried retreat, he realized that they were police officers. They even drove away in a police car, not at all concerned with the dozens of witnesses who saw them rob a civilian in broad daylight.

….

I have another cousin, a journalist who wrote pieces criticizing Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro, and who was promptly threatened by the regime’s thugs. They informed him, in unflinching detail, what would happen to him if he continued to publicly voice his opinions. He fled in terror to Uruguay. But when I called him, he wasn’t grateful to have escaped. He missed home. And he insisted that Uruguay is one of the most boring countries on the planet. “I’m surrounded by cows,” he complained.

Caracas may be one of the murder capitals of the world. Ninety percent of the nation lives in poverty, according to the National Survey of Living Conditions. One in three Venezuelan children suffer from malnutrition, according to the National Academy of Medicine. Smuggling, whether it’s gas, food, or human beings, represents 20 percent of the Venezuelan economy. But hey, at least it’s exciting. And there’s more to do than stare at cows.

Next, here is a timely piece by Noah Smith in Noahpinion:

The Super-Scary Theory of the 21st Century (repost)

In the 1600s and 1700s, great-power competition was about buying armies (either mercenaries or professional armies) to go take bits of land from your rivals. Public finance, which was really enabled by information technology (the printing press), helped with that. In the 1800s and early 1900s, great-power competition was about raising a big army to invade and conquer your rivals. Manufacturing helped with that. Etc.

So in the 21st century, what will great-power war look like? It might look like the Cold War, with rivals building up huge arsenals of superweapons and staring each other down. It might be about limited conflicts between navies, or something like that.

But it might be about fomenting instability in your rivals and maintaining stability at home.

….

This, then, is the Scary Theory of the 21st Century: Perhaps the internet is not a tool of freedom so much as evolutionary pressure that selects for authoritarianism. Perhaps social media has changed the nature of great-power competition into an endurance match in which control of the internet is key. Perhaps every country that doesn’t implement its own version of the Great Firewall and the 50 Cent Party will eventually fall victim to waves of Twitter-generated unrest.

…..

AI-powered sensors lurk everywhere, including in Uighurs’ purses and pants pockets. According to the anthropologist Darren Byler, some Uighurs buried their mobile phones containing Islamic materials, or even froze their data cards into dumplings for safekeeping, when Xi’s campaign of cultural erasure reached full tilt. But police have since forced them to install nanny apps on their new phones. The apps use algorithms to hunt for “ideological viruses” day and night. They can scan chat logs for Quran verses, and look for Arabic script in memes and other image files…Purchasing prayer rugs online, storing digital copies of Muslim books, and downloading sermons from a favorite imam are all risky activities. If a Uighur were to use WeChat’s payment system to make a donation to a mosque, authorities might take note…

Uighurs can travel only a few blocks before encountering a checkpoint outfitted with one of Xinjiang’s hundreds of thousands of surveillance cameras. Footage from the cameras is processed by algorithms that match faces with snapshots taken by police at “health checks.” At these checks, police extract all the data they can from Uighurs’ bodies. They measure height and take a blood sample. They record voices and swab DNA. Some Uighurs have even been forced to participate in experiments that mine genetic data, to see how DNA produces distinctly Uighurlike chins and ears. Police will likely use the pandemic as a pretext to take still more data from Uighur bodies…

When Uighurs reach the edge of their neighborhood, an automated system takes note. The same system tracks them as they move through smaller checkpoints, at banks, parks, and schools. When they pump gas, the system can determine whether they are the car’s owner. At the city’s perimeter, they’re forced to exit their cars, so their face and ID card can be scanned again.

Finally, The Guardian reported on Yuval Noah Harari’s remarks about risks of AI to the financial system given at the Global AI Safety Summit:

“AI is different from every previous technology in human history because it’s the first technology that can make decisions by itself, that can create new ideas by itself and that can learn and develop by itself. Almost by definition, it’s extremely difficult for humans, even the humans who created the technology, to foresee all the potential dangers and problems.”

…

“What happens if AI is not only given greater control over the financial system of the world, but it starts creating new financial devices that only AI can understand, that no human being can understand?” said Harari, adding that the 2007-08 financial crisis was caused by debt instruments such as collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) that few people understood and were thus inadequately regulated.

“AI has the potential to create financial devices which are orders of magnitude more complex than CDOs. And just imagine the situation where we have a financial system that no human being is able to understand and therefore also not able to regulate,” he said. “And then there is a financial crisis and nobody understands what is happening.”

I have my own thoughts about the risks of AI and the prospects of tech-authoritarianism in countries like India and Nepal. Once they are organized enough, you will read about them here at THG. Meanwhile, if you enjoyed reading this, please forward this recommendation piece to a couple of your friends who may be interested.