The United States' founding fathers intimately understood the power of both words and arms: a potent combination of which could either keep an oppressive regime in place or topple it. The outcome depended on who wielded this power. Free speech and the right to bear arms were engraved harmoniously at the top of our Bill of Rights, an attempt to ensure that the “People” would always wield the power.
The constitution is truly an ingenious document. For over 200 years, the constitution has functioned admirably in keeping The United States a relatively stable and incredibly powerful nation, and its “People” free. Over this span of time, electricity was invented, we tragically leveled entire cities with nuclear bombs, we sent a man to the moon, and selfies became a thing. Human nature, however, remained constant and thus surprisingly predictable. For most of history, technology as a simple function of human nature never dramatically diminished the effectiveness of the 1st and 2nd amendment. But is this finally changing? Has the simple function of technology and human nature started to diverge?
I've become fascinated by the questions the developments in technology (and the Trump era) raise about objective truth, civil rights, and society in general. I'll caveat that every generation thought "this time is different" only to find it wasn't. That said, here's why I think things are finally different.
Jockeying for 1st Place
The Pen and the Sword have been constantly jockeying for 1st place throughout history (printing press, warplanes, radio, atom bombs, television, AR-15s). When the sword got an unfair advantage, limits to the 2nd amendment was 'relatively' straightforward or even obvious. I can't, for instance, buy a nuclear weapon or a tank at a local gun shop. In the past decade, the Pen has gone into overdrive. These advancements have been much more complicated to deal with. Any individual now can reach millions of people in milliseconds - and target those individuals with incredible preciseness. Governments and individuals continue to hand over power to technology giants, which owe their allegiance only to shareholders. And Artificial Intelligence, with theoretically infinite capabilities, are further blurring the lines of objective truth and reality. Now you may be thinking that the Pen is not actually mightier than the Sword, especially in the (never ending) wake of the senseless school shootings. But it's important to remember that speech sets the conversation - it's social media, lobbyists, conservative media that is creating the inaction for gun reform.
Info Wars
At the end of the Cold War, the United States largely pulled out of the information warfare with Russia. Officials at the time viewed Russia as a "Third rate regional power" and did not believe information warfare was a serious threat to our democracy. "I thought our ground was not as fertile," said Antony J. Blinken, Obama's deputy secretary of state. "We believed that the truth shall set you free, that the truth would prevail. That proved a bit naive." (There's a great article on this topic here).
But the threats are not just from external geopolitical forces. Fake news is created for both profit and political gain. There is a fascinating podcast about a "Fake News King" that started creating both liberal and conservative fake news sites initially as a social experiment and eventually as a way to make a profit. Fake sensational stories proved to be highly profitably among conservative audiences. (This Planet Money Podcast is a Must) .
And then there is Alex Jone's InfoWars - the controversial conservative talk show host and conspiracy theorist (net worth over $10M). And of course, there is President Trump who has leveraged Twitter to an extent that no other President in history has and has been extremely loose with the truth for political gain.
The rate at which information spreads from many different sources and the varying motivations (geopolitical, profit, and political gain) makes it nearly impossible to prevent fake news in today's world. By the time a story has been identified as fake, millions of people may have already read and turned it into their truth before it could be corrected. That is unique to the time we live in.
Social Media Coup d'état
The constitution was designed primarily to protect individuals from the government - not from ourselves. Our founding fathers, could not have imagined the power that the tech giants have gained in today's age. Their market caps are larger than the GDP's of most countries and we rely on them on a daily basis more so than our government. For many of us, Google, Amazon, and Facebook shutting down for a day would have a much more significant impact than our government shutting down for a day.
The goal of social media companies is to get users addicted to their platforms and products - to make more money for their shareholders. As long as advertising is the primary business model, social media companies are going to be fighting for your attention. Getting users addicted to their platforms means feeding (via algorithms) users what they want (Attention Please). And people want to consume what they already believe - that's the human nature part. When you insert fake news into this system, it simply compounds itself. Social media giants are trying to address fake news by introducing new rules, but that just raises another concern. How much power should these companies have in creating their own rules that potentially limit free speech?
Deep Fakes
Artificial intelligence takes fake news to a completely new level. The new phenomenon of Deep Fakes are demonstrating how dangerous it could become to our democracy. Deep fake technology inserts individuals’ faces into videos without their permission. The result is believable videos of people doing and saying things they never did. Machine-learning algorithms (often neural networks) combined with facial-mapping software enable the cheap and easy fabrication of content that hijacks one’s identity—voice, face, body.
Here are just a couple of examples showing how dangerous this could be:
- Fake videos could feature public officials taking bribes, uttering racial epithets, or engaging in adultery.
- Politicians and other government officials could appear in locations where they were not, saying or doing horrific things that they did not.
- Fake videos could place them in meetings with spies or criminals, launching public outrage, criminal investigations, or both.
For more on Deep Fakes and their implications check out this interesting post on the Lawfare blog.
AND THE STORY GOES ON
Each week are there are new developments on this issue: tech companies scrambling to combat fake news, new court rulings that solve one issue only to raise another, and new innovations that just make the issue even more complex. This one blog post does not even scratch the surface on this topic.