By Conor Pelan
Many people nowadays ask chatbots to acquire information, completely trusting its reliability. However, this documentary explores the historical and political background of artificial intelligence.
Veatch explains how parts of AI’s information and mathematical systems are rooted in eugenics. Sir Francis Galton created the term ‘eugenics’ using mathematical theories to support his politics. These theories were later developed by Galton’s protege, the mathematician Karl Pearson, who designed systems like ‘correlation coefficient’ and ‘logistics regression’. These same mathematical models are used in modern AI to organise data.
Many of its early pioneers dreamed of creating a machine with human level intelligence. Pioneers such as John McCarthy, once a committed communist, who later became a staunch Republican, coined the term ‘artificial intelligence’ in the 1950s.
Seventy years later using McCarthy’s work and Pearson’s mathematics, AI is advancing in Silicon Valley. Sam Altman; a major player in its development, is creating an AGI ‘median human’, an artificial general intelligence worker that has the same capabilities of an average person.
Ghost in the Machine also details a correlation between AI and Nazi ideology. Another example is Elon Musk’s ‘Grok’ whose ‘anti-woke’ programming resulted in anti-semitism. The Nazi racist ideas were heavily influenced by American eugenicists.
So what are the interests of those financing AI?
Artificial intelligence is supported by powerful business figures, including Donald Trump, who see financial benefits in replacing human workers with machines. Trump’s public opposition to “wokeism” and “critical race theory” reflects, a fascist form of anti-progressivism and a racial agenda that dismisses efforts to address the ongoing injustices of modern racism.
Screenshot
Ghost in the Machine explains the result is ‘techno-fascism’ – a new term that describes the relationship between the White House and Silicon Valley, also known as a ‘Broligarchy’. In this ‘techno-facist’ society, AI will be our ‘God’. It has already been given legislative powers to be above international law.
The documentary examines how in modern clinics, using genomic screening, artificial intelligence can also play ‘God’ to remove diseases and disabilities in unborn babies, legitimising eugenics’ ‘perfect’ human concept. Where traditional eugenics was hereditary, this system is machine based. However genomic screening could create a eugenicist class divide of those that can afford optimising and those that can’t.
Veatch highlights how the harmful effects of AI are often overlooked, particularly across Africa. In Nairobi, OpenAI was reported to be paying workers less than two dollars an hour. AI data centres also require vast amounts of water and can harm the health of nearby communities, contributing to problems such as asthma. These operations are often located in poorer countries and refugee camps, particularly in regions that were historically colonised by Britain, where English is already widely spoken as a second language.
Ultimately creating a world of new digital colonialism with imperialist views of the past, resulting in a George Orwell–style 1984 techno-dystopia.Ghost in the Machine opened my eyes to a terrifying truth I’d suspected about the current direction of our society, but could never quite understand.
