In a world driven by Deep-Learning algorithms data becomes its greatest resource. The quantity and quality of data fed into an algorithm determines the speed and accuracy at which it learns, determining the efficiencies derived from the use of AI technology. Data is the economic fuel of the modern era, not oil.
If Nations are in midst of an AI race, then what they are really in is a race to collect data. If you look at this race as beyond nations and between civilisations, it becomes clear to see that the West is at a severe disadvantage to the East. This is because the characteristics of Western Civilisation are at odds with the authoritarian nature of data collection.
The quantity and quality of data collected on people is determined by the quantity and quality of their surveillance. Societies acclimatised to being surveilled produce a higher quantity and quality of data than those concerned with privacy. This also impacts the adoption rate of new technology.
The West is well aware that if their societies do not catch up and keep up in data collection they will see their power wane out of balance to the East's. US report outlining this fear in depth as one of national security.
In the 1980s Western capital poured into China and developed an economic system referred to as ‘Capitalism with Chinese characteristics’. In the 1990s the West did exactly the same thing with Russia. This brought the East economically on par with the rest of the world and more into balance of power with the West. To achieve this Eastern societies were forced to drastically and rapidly reorganise their societies along Western economic lines.
Due to the surveillance state mandate of AI driven technology, it appears to be the Wests turn to rapidly and drastically reorganise their societies along more authoritative lines to bring them on par with the Easts.
Luckily for the West the pandemic has provided not only the perfect necessity, but a mandate backed by a fundamental tenet of Western ideology—scientific rationalism, to rapidly and drastically reorganise itself into what could be called—Authoritarianism with Western characteristics.
The measures used to fight against this pandemic all produce greater quantities of higher quality data from Western populations:
The motivations behind the policies governing covid19 responses are driven by two things:
Since the second cannot be openly acknowledged, a problem begins to arise when a policy measure is designed to maximise data more than minimise virus. Such policy eventually becomes exposed and health officials are forced to defend measures designed to collect data. These health officials lose credibility as the nature of their job becomes that of a politician. One forced to navigate untenable positions through distortions of reality.
Now think about this.
If maximising data collection has become an imperative of national security, and the policy for collecting this data is literally the same policy for minimising virus, then it becomes a national security imperative for there to be virus to minimise for the collection of data. . .