These machines have been trained to hunt conservatives
This is already happening. In YouTube's 2019 "community guidelines enforcement report" – a yearly celebration of the amount of videos they've kicked off the internet – the video-sharing platform reported that the vast majority of videos removed from its platform that year were a result of "automated flagging." According to the report, over 8 million videos removed from the platform were a result of automated flagging, compared to just 345,435 that were taken down as a result of reports from users. Clearly, we are already living in a world run, at least in part, by machines. And—if those candid statements from current and former Twitter employees are representative of wider attitudes in Silicon Valley—those machines have been trained to hunt conservatives.
But it's not just about content removals. We are rapidly moving into a world in which big tech algorithms are involved in almost every aspect of our lives. Whether we're approved for loans, mortgage, insurance, whether we're allowed to rent an apartment, whether we can use platforms like Airbnb, Uber, and Lyft, whether our business appears at the top of Google search or whether it's buried five pages down, even who we'll be matched with on online dating apps. Algorithms already have an outsized impact on our daily lives, and this trend is only going to accelerate.
Control over this technology is the biggest prize in tech. In the title
of his influential 2013 book, computer scientist Jaron Lanier asked, "Who owns the future?"
With AI set to become a major feature of virtually every industry over
the next century, the question may very well be rephrased as, "Who owns the AI?" Industries
are unlikely to develop their own AI systems; they will likely rely on
whatever is produced by the "experts" in Silicon Valley. The same tech
giants that dominate today are likely to dominate the AI-powered world
of tomorrow. AI trained in leftist ideology will carry those biases far
beyond Silicon Valley, into finance, housing, journalism, law, commerce,
and every other field you can imagine. In the near future, AI will help
determine whether you're hired for a job, whether you're approved for a
loan or a mortgage, whether your children are accepted into a
university, whether you can finance a car, whether you can rent an
apartment.
An incident at Google in 2019 showed just how determined the left is to maintain ideological hegemony over AI. In March of that year, Google announced the formation of an external "AI ethics council" comprised of eight members. Seven of the eight included mainstream academics, computing experts, and a former diplomat who served under Barack Obama. But for left-wing Google employees, one member stood out: Kay Coles James, president of the Heritage Foundation, one of the foremost conservative think tanks in the U.S.
The freakout was immediate.
One the same day that Google announced its plans for an AI ethics
council, employees created a thread on an internal discussion channel to
complain about the inclusion of Coles James. The discussion quickly
spiraled into a chorus of smears against the African-American
conservative, with far-left employees accusing her of "hateful
positions," "bigotry," and even something called "exterminationism." One
employee branded the Heritage Foundation "monstrous," describing it as
"organization dedicated to eliminating LGBTQ+ people from public life,
driving them back into the closet" and "denying them healthcare."
Another employee claimed the "rhetorical violence" of the think tank
"translate[s] into real, material violence against trans people,
particularly trans women of color."
"See systems deployed to aide ICE in targeting immigrants, to aid the Military in drone strikes, or to enhance worker control. Thus, in ensuring we are 'ethical' in our pursuit of AI dominance, we need to include and amplify the perspectives of those most at risk."
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