Aicracy – Governed by Algorithms

We tried to create everyday objects from a fictional world in which we somehow chose to be governed by algorithms. The scariest thing about it was that nothing we came up with doesn't already happen in some way.

I have sometimes wondered whether a sufficiently advanced AI could measure a proposed piece of legislation against a constitution/bill of rights/"mission statement", and provide a score to show how likely it is to conform and further the social mission.

Step 2 would be to allow the sufficiently advanced AI to propose the legislation.

>The scariest thing about it was that nothing we came up with doesn't already happen in some way.

Like the texts on the homepage, there are two ways to interpret this sentence. I don't want to imply an insult but why haven't you continued until you came up with something new?

>Quickly, your brain will learn to stay focused, enabling you to be meaningfully productive without the urge to distract yourself.

Why would there be a need for focused work in a world where an ai is available?

If the government is just a mindless algorithm, where would be the difference to the current situation with an unaware code of law?

We turn people into computers, who need stimuli to be happy, or punishment to stay focus. Once we have ai to do the computing, there is no need to train people into rigid structures. Thus the entire mood of a dystopia shouldn't be there. There will only be one in-group because nobody else is needed. However, the possible implications of that future are far more sinister.

> This will help you to conveniently find the products that match your taste, your wallet, and your societal value. To increase your societal value, just be yourself and actively contribute as much as you can. Your efforts will not remain unrewarded.

This is supposed to be dystopian etc, but don't we already have this mechanism in place in our current world? It's called money.

I get this was a design/art project and not necessarily meant to be sophisticated political philosophy, nonetheless there are a few distinctions here that would be useful:

To be ruled by AI I think requires the AI to be in some sense conscious, to have some notion of I and be able to form its own values and goals. Otherwise the ruler is whoever imposes/creates the AI, just in a once removed sort of way.

On the other hand to be ruled by algorithms: we already are. That's basically what the "rule of law" means - it's the (actually fairly desirable) right to be ruled and governed by a set of (in principle) knowable algorithms, which creates a fairer society than one ruled directly by human dictat.

What's being depicted (and criticised) in the film I think are mostly two things:

1. Some notion of social credit, where desirable actions are being rewarded with some arbitrary tokens and undesirable actions are being punished by these tokens being taken away. In some way this is already the case with capitalism (where desirable actions are work/investment and tokens are money), so I think some notion where what is societally desirable being more broadly evaluated isn't necessarily that terrible.

2. Persistent surveillance. This makes the above notions of social credit a bit more challenging since in some ways it makes participation in the social ranking system less voluntary (although how voluntary is work/making money in our own system is pretty debatable). Also it's creepy and dangerous in a number of other ways.

Neither of these things really require AI or algorithms to be bad, but AI tech really helps with the scalability of these solutions and therefore their applicability to real world societies. But it doesn't really seem like you are critiquing things for which AI would actually be bad as such (such as bias in training, value of compassion over justice, etc)