The world is in the midst of a new major technological revolution. To be precise, it is the third major technological revolution in the last 35 years. It began with the creation of the World Wide Web in 1989information was put online and became accessible worldwide at the speed of electrical signals. This was the information revolution. Despite this major innovation, information was largely unstructured and difficult to access. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, online information became more structured. Advanced search engines, such as Googlecame online. Social media sites, like My space And Facebookwent online. It was the data revolution. Information became more accessible, structured and abundant, but the vast amounts of raw data were difficult to manage, sort and transform into actionable intelligence. From the late 2000s to today, innovations such as the online connection crowdfundingprogress in artificial intelligence, facial recognition, social media data miningAnd gamification have made it possible to quickly and efficiently process massive amounts of data to extract intelligence. This is the intelligence revolution.
The technological advances that have enabled the intelligence revolution have also enabled governments to deploy enormous capabilities that were not previously possible. If mass surveillance technology, advanced targeting systems, autonomous drones, and advanced artificial intelligence were combined, governments could create a lethal capability that surpasses even Orwell’s direst prophecies. In other words, governments could create systems of automated genocide. How would such a system work?
The first step in an automated genocide system is mass surveillance, both in physical and cyber battlespaces. Mass surveillance technology allows for the connection massive amounts of cameras over very large geographic areas to monitor entire populations. Through facial recognition, states can easily identify and track individuals using these mass surveillance systems. China is currently using this technology to horrific effect in Xinjiang to Identify and monitor Uighurs. Israel uses a mass surveillance system called Red Wolf to track Palestinians using facial recognition.
Computer data mining has also become much more sophisticated and powerful. Since the invention of the Internet, governments have been using advanced data mining programs to monitor their respective populations. For example, the FBI has implemented a data mining program Carnivorous The program was an early example of government data mining, and Carnivore’s capabilities were surpassed by those of the National Security Agency. PRISM Programwhich captured massive amounts of data from the Internet. The creation of social networks has only made this process easier. Robots and other advanced scrapers guided by artificial intelligence can easily mine data from countless social media profiles, posts and other media assets to gather intelligence on dissidents and political activists.
Cambridge Analytica demonstrated the capabilities of data mining software during the 2016 presidential election by exploiting data 87 million Facebook profilesLinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter profiles alone contain treasure troves of information: names, addresses, places visited, phone numbers, emails, profile pictures (for facial recognition), education, workplaces, and the names of colleagues and friends. Social media profiles also contain information that could serve as various measures for a government seeking dissent: connections to other dissidents (Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections, Twitter followers, etc.), tweets, Twitter hashtags, and Facebook comments. A mass surveillance system could use social media data to construct a massive map of the social networks and profiles of political dissidents.
Mass surveillance is about more than just cameras, computer data mining, and wiretapping devices. Human intelligence (HUMINT) still plays a vital role in any mass surveillance system, and technology can make HUMINT collection much more effective and efficient through crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing involves using large groups of people to collect information through online platforms. Using crowdsourcingGovernments can quickly and efficiently gather intelligence from thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of informants. Crowdsourcing also allows the government to order large groups of supporters to respond to online dissent. The Israeli government has developed an online program called Act.il which facilitates the coordination of, “…thousands of volunteers, mostly based in the United States, who can be directed from Israel to a social media swarm.” This application allows the Israeli government and its allies to promote their stories and respond effectively to any counter-narratives.
With this data, governments could identify dissidents, opposition political activists and any other group that could pose a threat to the regime. Using a gamification system (similar to social credit system (used in China), these individuals can be classified according to many different parameters (e.g., ties to other dissidents, work with dissident groups, participation in protests, etc.) to determine their threat level. Using this classification, governments can focus their mass surveillance system on specific individuals for ongoing monitoring. As more intelligence comes into the system, each target’s individual classification can change based on the target’s evolving threat profile.
Once a targeted individual reaches a certain rank, the system automatically begins creating a plan to neutralize the threat. At lower thresholds, the system can only send bots to troll a target’s social media accounts. At a higher threshold, the system can send security forces to incarcerate or deport the target. At the highest threshold, the system can send autonomous drones, using the most advanced technologies. “drone swarm” technology, to assassinate the target.
This type of system is called a automated destruction chainand this is not science fiction. The US military has been development This technology for years to target al-Qaeda and ISIS militants. Israel has already set up an automated kill chain called Lavender in Gaza. Lavender combines data mining with a gamification algorithm to classify and designate targets for attacks and assassinations. Where is dad is another system deployed by Israel in Gaza, which uses integrated mass surveillance to track targets. The Ukrainian government uses an automated kill chain program called MetaConstellation. MetaConstellation combines, “…commercial and classified government data…that allows military officials to communicate the enemy’s location to commanders on the ground or decide whether to strike a target.”
At present, the various stages of the destruction chain still have a certain degree of separation and human intervention at each stage. For example, Israel’s Lavender target classification system is separated Since the Where’s Daddy militant tracking system, these systems still require human commanders to order strikes from drones or other military assets. To fully automate a kill chain, advanced artificial intelligence capable of efficiently processing the massive amounts of data is required, and it’s only a matter of time before someone develops the artificial intelligence needed to run such a system.
When such a powerful and dangerous weapon becomes possible, its creation will become virtually inevitable. When nations begin to implement fully automated kill chain systems, these systems will simultaneously monitor, target, and eliminate dissidents in entire populations. True, humans will still be involved in intelligence gathering and analysis at various points along the kill chain, but the process, from data mining to target acquisition to execution, will be automated.
These automated genocide systems will be the 21st The new weapons of mass destruction of the century. Unlike the indiscriminate destruction of nuclear weapons, automated genocide systems can target tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of selected people from specific groups (political dissidents, opposition groups, ethnic minorities, etc.) with a high degree of precision and lethality, creating an unprecedented threat in today’s world. In the six months since Israel began its war on Gaza, the Israeli military has killed 33,137 Palestiniansand many of these deaths were the result of Israel’s policies Lavender and Where’s Dad Targeting systems. Imagine how many deaths would have been if the Israeli army had a fully automated kill chain.
Automated genocide is not just a concept from science fiction or Orwellian nightmares. It is the product of the intelligence revolution and the result of the failure of national and international legal frameworks to regulate and limit the misuse of these emerging technologies. The technologies that will enable automated genocide are not theoretical; they have been developed and are currently being applied. The only missing piece is the integration of these technologies with artificial intelligence to enable a fully automated kill chain. The integration of artificial intelligence, crowdsourcing, gamification software, facial recognition, and swarm drone technology will allow governments to kill with a speed and efficiency never before seen in world history. Without the creation of a global regulatory body to oversee the development and spread of these destructive tools – like the global stance on nuclear weapons – the world faces the proliferation of a terrifying new weapon of mass destruction.
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Further reading on electronic international relations
