Hijack?
Olivia Morgan
Data, algorithms and machine learning sit at the forefront of today’s discussion, especially surrounding the in-built biases currently flooding through our networks within cyberspace. These new technologies have given us the power to amplify the ability of human work to groundbreaking highs with results unattainable of the human being alone.
However it is hugely important to consistently remind ourselves of the role in which human beings have had in shaping these new systems. Without human input, they would simply not exist. Human input is at the very foundations of it all; bias outputs therefore almost inevitable. In recent years, we’ve seen these new technologies filter through cyberspace in a variety of forms. However, what proves most disconcerting at present is the way in which our capitalist networks have caught on and begun exploiting this technological potential with real world impact.
The recent Cambridge Analytica scandal highlights this political and technological collision with hammering impacts on our futures. Through the collection of voter data and algorithmic technologies, CA consciously induced a purposeful, mass bias into the bloodstream of cyberspace, consequently inducing a subconscious bias into the minds of millions of voters across 200+ countries. Using emotional and individual level targeting, CA overwhelmed voters with misinformation ‘until they saw the world the way CA wanted them to’ (Brittany Kaiser, 2019). Voters were a product of unconscious manipulation, their values and beliefs toyed with for the benefit of those in power. This was not innocent campaigning but direct and calculated action which was successful in its aim. We have been used and exploited, our emotions weaponised. The impact is harrowing when countries are left with a body in power who never initially represented the majority of citizens’ initial and inherent values. CA’s success evidences our clear susceptibility, as a society, to this form of emotional propaganda and without review, our futures are simply a product of mass bias.
Whilst we continue to buy into the illusion that we very much exist within a democracy and that our futures are the making of personal choice, they are in fact being calculated and decided by those in power. It is now time to question whether we are crossing the border from democratic systems into dictatorial ground. Are we no longer the drivers to our own political futures? Have these new technologies given powerful access to loopholes in our political systems, hijacking democracy and changing politics indefinitely? Due to the soaring rate of this technological advancement, we are currently in limbo, as we have not yet created the necessary regulation surrounding such systems. Without also considering these technologies within a real world context, our futures seem to sit in the hands of the powerful other. How do we regain ownership of our political futures and basic human rights in this inevitable evolution? Do we begin regulating online space in order to govern the exploitation of real world ethics or will the governance of cyberspace destroy the political freedom online space offers?
Perhaps if we’re discussing the ownership of ones future, we must start with being more transparent about the ways in which these technologies are being used in our global spaces. Although, this feels somewhat unrealistic; how does one convince the world that, with these new systems and implicit influences in place, they can no longer trust the sanctity of their own mind? Likewise, it is difficult and dangerous to suggest such an idea when evidence throughout history presents an unnerving parallel between transparency and hyper-normalisation. Rather than actively differentiating between our inherent beliefs and those being imposed upon us, followed by actively attempting to change the system, will we merely result to living and experiencing the system in which we are given?
Olivia Morgan is a Graphic Design Communication student in her final year at Chelsea College of Art; as a keen writer and researcher, her current work explores the future of politics in an Information Age.