China boasts of “mind-reading” artificial intelligence that supports “AI tocracy”.

An artificial intelligence (AI) institute in Hefei, in China’s Anhui province, says it has developed software that can measure the loyalty of Communist Party members – something that if true would be considered a breakthrough, but public ones sparked outrage.

Analysts said China has upgraded its AI-powered surveillance, using big data, machine learning, facial recognition and AI to “penetrate the brains and minds of its people” and build what many are calling a draconian digital dictatorship.

Clever Thought Education?

The institute released a video on July 1 titled “The Smart Political Education Bar” to boast about its “mind-reading” software, which would be used by party members to “further strengthen their determination to be grateful to the party.” to consolidate, listen to the party and follow the party.”

In the video, a subject was seen scrolling through online material promoting party politics at a kiosk, where the institute said its AI software monitored his reaction to see how attentive he was to the party’s thought education was.

However, the post was removed shortly after sparking a public outcry among Chinese netizens.

Hung Ching-fu, a political science professor at National Cheng Kung University in Tainan in southern Taiwan, said the Communist Party has misused technological advances to serve its own political interests.

“She has used cutting edge technology to bolster her party state. China has switched from early facial recognition to AI programs that try to get into brains and minds (more) than the eye can see. Adopting advanced AI will reinforce its total control,” Hung told VOA over the phone.

Hung added China’s AI-powered police state will strain its population, who are likely to censor themselves or live in fear.

digital oppression

But he placed little faith in what he called China’s digital oppression, which he says is likely to put the Communist Party in the “dictator’s dilemma” — a political term used to describe a government leader’s failure to protect the hearts and minds of his people to win.

“The higher you build your wall [of power], the further one is cut off from the people… This is what we call the “dictator’s dilemma” in politics. This means that despite their enormous power, dictators keep in touch with the people. I don’t think political systems that go against human nature will endure,” Hung added.

Calls and emails from VOA to the Hefei-based institute asking for comment went unanswered.

The so-called mind-reading software is just the latest digital control China has implemented.

China has reportedly used facial recognition in Xinjiang to keep tabs on ethnic Uyghurs and has upgraded its surveillance in recent years with “one person, one file” software to help track its population.

Late last year, authorities in Henan province reportedly implemented a similar system to track what they see as “suspects” of journalists, foreign students and women. At the same time, prosecutors in Shanghai have reportedly adopted AI prosecutors who can charge eight felonies, including credit card fraud and charges of initiating disputes and provoking trouble.

Chinese online newspaper The Paper reported that as early as 2017, a Sichuan Communist Party school had developed “Smart Red Cloud,” which could already monitor party members’ response to their political education and “calculate” their loyalty.

Victims of China’s surveillance system

Several lawyers and activists told VOA, on condition of anonymity, that they were victims of China’s digital surveillance system.

A human rights activist from Wuhan, Hebei, said he was once taken away by police, who were able to identify him after a roadside camera captured his face while he was on the street.

A Beijing-based lawyer complained that he could not post online news or register online due to China’s strict censorship and digital tracking system.

Another lawyer revealed that Chinese police illegally collected biometric data from the eye pupils, fingerprints and urine samples of those in their care to step up what he called “precise but vicious” surveillance.

However, China’s widespread application of AI technologies is stimulating the sector’s innovation, according to recent research by author Martin Beraja, assistant professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and three other scholars at Harvard University and the London School of Economics and Business political science.

Her research concluded that while new technologies strengthen autocratic power and autocratic demand stimulates innovation, “this mutual benefit could even lead to long-term, sustainable AI innovation in China and create a so-called ‘AI tocracy.’ “

AI tocracy

“In procuring this government contract, they have [AI firms in China] Getting access to this data which of course allows them to innovate for the government application typically related to public safety or crime prevention or the like. This has impacted their commercial innovation as they may either use the same government data or, where constrained, use the same algorithms trained on that data to develop commercial products used in the private sector,” Beraja said versus VOA.

Such commercial software is used in supermarkets, for example, to track consumers as they move down the aisles, the professor added.

However, Beraja expressed concern about China’s AI exports, which his research says are likely to help other repressive governments.

“One thing we observe is that the countries that are more autocratic or relatively weak democracies actually import more facial recognition AI from China, more likely to import facial recognition AI from China than other technologies. And to me that means that in some ways these technologies are actually being used for surveillance and repression,” Beraja added.

Zola, a prominent blogger from China who is now a citizen of Taiwan, said most netizens in China oppose the country’s digital oppression, although their opposition is often muted.

He questioned the sustainability of China’s AI tocracy.

“China may export these technologies to other countries. But in the long run, such a governance model will push a society to go to extremes… and repeat the irrational pattern of policy-making during the (Chinese) Cultural Revolution era. That will lead to his own breakdown,” Zola told VOA.

This article is from VOA’s Mandarin service.