The recent news that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman pitched the Biden Administration a massive build-out of artificial intelligence (AI) data centers should raise the alarm on a dangerous convergence: the alliance of Big Tech with the Military-Industrial Complex and the federal government. The move, reported in Zero Hedge, outlines Altman’s proposal for a network of advanced AI centers ostensibly to bolster American technological leadership. But this proposed marriage of Silicon Valley’s emerging AI technologies with federal power—and particularly with the Pentagon and intelligence agencies—poses critical threats to individual privacy and freedom of thought.
For years, we’ve witnessed a steady erosion of privacy at the hands of both corporate giants and government institutions. From Facebook’s—now Meta (NASDAQ: META)—data scandals to intelligence agency overreach through programs like PRISM or Project Mockingbird.
Just imagine what goes on at the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) venture capital arm at “In-Q-Tel” designed to invest in start-ups with strategic goals that align with the Agency’s. The combined power of federal authorities and tech behemoths has continually demonstrated a desire to sidestep individual rights in pursuit of their own interests.
In a similar vein to classic Big Tech consolidation, the Crypto Open Patent Alliance (COPA), which includes Silicon Valley giants like Block, Meta and (Sam Altman’s) WorldCoin, has ambitions in the blockchain, fintech and AI spaces with lots of overlap in sectors of particular interest to the surveillance state.
Big Tech, Big Government: A troubling alliance
When we talk about the convergence of tech giants and federal power, we are not talking about speculative risk. There is a long history of partnerships that have enabled overreach, surveillance, and censorship. Amazon’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) AWS hosting CIA databases, Palantir’s data analysis contracts for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and Google’s (NASDAQ: GOOGL) scrapped Project Maven AI contract with the Pentagon are just a few examples of the increasingly blurry line between the public and private sectors.
As these companies further align their technologies and policies with those of federal authorities and intelligence agencies, the combination of corporate influence and government power could result in an environment where free expression, data privacy and open access to information become luxuries of a bygone era.
AI has the capacity to democratize information and revolutionize productivity, yes. But it can also become a weapon for censorship and manipulation on an unprecedented scale. The curation of data used to train AI models becomes a choke point through which the flow of information can be filtered, edited and outright deleted before it even reaches public consciousness. As a result, powerful actors—whether corporate or governmental—can use this convergence to effectively rewrite social and historical narratives without public debate. It’s a digital “Ministry of Truth,” capable of silencing dissent or inconvenient ideas simply by controlling what AI deems “true.”
AI and the risk of institutional capture
“OpenAI is actively working to strengthen AI infrastructure in the US, which we believe is critical to keeping America at the forefront of global innovation, boosting reindustrialization across the country, and making AI’s benefits accessible to everyone,” OpenAI recently told Bloomberg.
However, consider the implications of Altman’s proposal. The deployment of government-funded AI data centers is a step forward in technological competitiveness, and I’m not debating that, but it also effectively hands the federal government a new apparatus to shape the development and use of AI technologies. By financing and guiding these technologies, the government gains a say in how they evolve, which means the frameworks for privacy, ethical standards and acceptable uses of AI are likely to align closely with federal interests.
When AI systems become the primary tools for information dissemination, news aggregation and even research, the question of who controls the curation process becomes a matter of extreme importance. These are tools that could make fact-checking impossible, enabling narratives to be cemented without recourse to alternative viewpoints. Governments and Big Tech have already shown their propensity to censor inconvenient ideas—whether through de-platforming, content moderation, or subtle tweaks to search algorithms. We have seen Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey admit, for example, that they allowed government agencies to censor criticisms of how the pandemic was handled and also suppressed the truth about Hunter Biden’s laptop!
The result of Altman’s proposal becoming reality is much worse because it will enter into an atmosphere ripe for the perpetuation of disinformation campaigns that average people will soon be completely unable to decipher on their own.
Why, you ask?
Because we are entering an era where AI systems could be leveraged to automate censorship. Imagine an AI that flags or removes “misinformation” in real-time, using criteria set by corporate interests and government agencies. What counts as “harmful” or “false” becomes a question of political ideology rather than objective truth. And when these decisions are embedded in AI models—especially ones that become more sophisticated and integrated into our lives—it becomes nearly impossible to challenge them because we won’t even be able to research to find the truth. The speed at which AI moves and adapts makes it a blunt force instrument for those who would prefer to silence the inconvenient truths of our time.
The urgent need for decentralization
The only realistic way to combat this growing consolidation of technological power is through the decentralization of data and knowledge. Distributed databases, particularly those that leverage blockchain technology, offer a vital aspect of the solution. Blockchains provide a decentralized, tamper-proof ledger that is open to the public, making it much more difficult for any single entity to manipulate or erase information. In essence, a blockchain-based archive makes history nearly immutable. It’s a technology that brings accountability and transparency to the forefront, exactly the traits needed to counter the potential abuse of AI and centralized tech power.
If we want to preserve our freedom to think, speak and share ideas, we must advocate for the storage of vital works and sources of knowledge on distributed ledgers. I believe, very quickly, this will become a moral imperative. Just as we have historically fought for the freedom of the press, we must now fight for the freedom of information storage and distribution.
With the rapidly increasing pace of AI development and with Big Tech and government interests aligning to guide its future, the window for securing our digital freedoms is quickly closing. If we do not act swiftly to push for decentralization and the preservation of knowledge in distributed, uncensorable spaces, we will lose the ability to control our own narratives and, ultimately, our ability to govern ourselves as a free society.
This is not a fight between left and right, progressive and conservative, or Big Tech and the people. This is a fight for the future of open information, transparent governance and the basic freedom to think and speak without fear of erasure. And it is a fight that requires urgency, vigilance, and the courage to stand against the forces that would see us confined to a curated digital reality.
Distributed truth is the only way to preserve freedom in an age where AI and centralized powers seek to shape it for us. The battle is now, and it is a battle we cannot afford to lose.
In order for artificial intelligence (AI) to work right within the law and thrive in the face of growing challenges, it needs to integrate an enterprise blockchain system that ensures data input quality and ownership—allowing it to keep data safe while also guaranteeing the immutability of data. Check out CoinGeek’s coverage on this emerging tech to learn more why Enterprise blockchain will be the backbone of AI.
Watch: Demonstrating the potential of blockchain’s fusion with AI
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Source: https://coingeek.com/perils-of-big-tech-military-industrial-complex-convergence/