[Link Post] Cyber Digital Authoritarianism (National Intelligence Council Report)

post by Phosphorous (everett-smith) · 2023-02-26T20:51:49.579Z · LW · GW · 2 comments

This is a link post for https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/NICM-Declassified-Cyber-Operations-Enabling-Expansive-Digital-Authoritarianism-20200407--2022.pdf

Contents

  Highlights
  My Takeaway
None
2 comments

Disclaimer: The U.S. government selectively declassified this report for unknown reasons, and anti-Chinese-Communist-Party sentiment is high in Washington D.C. While I doubt this means the contents are factually inaccurate, it is likely framed to highlight dangerous or unethical aspects of CCP activity, and likely suffers from whatever bias one would expect from the National Security community. 

I don't think that anything in this report is very surprising (50% of it is redacted, and it's only 6 pages anyways), but I think it is useful to get a sense of what some members of the national security community are thinking about re: China and digital authoritarianism.

Highlights

• Concern around China and Russia using large scale data analysis to influence or coerce actors in the United States and other countries.
• "Growing concern in Europe and other democracies about Chinese and Russian cyber actions and personal privacy creates an opportunity to propose alternatives to blunt digital authoritarianism"

 

My Takeaway

• Maybe folks with an interest in national security topics could do work on understanding the risk of and preventing long-term, stable, AI powered totalitarianism. I'd be excited for more work in that area. 
• Maybe there could be interest among many stakeholders for AI governance work to help prevent or regulate capabilities that could contribute to digital authoritarianism. I might imagine this could overlap with AI governance efforts to reduce existential or catastrophic risks.

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