AI’s incredible potential could be used to shorten the workweek, prevent and cure disease, or increase crop yields to end world hunger. But the capitalists have other plans. One of the few areas where they’re rapidly adopting AI technology is in the repressive state apparatus—to aid in war, surveillance, and austerity.
Automating bombing campaigns
The US military funded the earliest AI research starting in the 1950s. So it’s not surprising that they use AI to wage imperialist war.
Edward Snowden’s 2013 bombshell leak exposed an NSA program with the motto: “We track ‘em, you whack ‘em.” The NSA used metadata and AI to determine the likelihood of someone becoming a “terrorist” so the military could kill them with “precision strikes.” In 2014, a human rights organization found that “attempts to kill 41 men resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1,147 people”—is that “precision”?
Today, it’s private tech monopolies developing the technology. They sell it to anyone who will buy: governments, police departments, banks and hedge funds, private investigators, companies to surveil their workers, and even foreign governments.
In 2017, the government paid Google to develop Project Maven. This would allow the military to select and strike targets identified from satellite images, drone video footage, and radar data. After thousands of Google employees signed petitions and walked out of their jobs, Palantir took over the contract.
Thanks to Maven, the US bombed Iran at a faster rate than ever in the first AI-dominant war. But the system’s accuracy is terrible: 60%, compared to human analysts’ 84%. It’s likely that the girls’ school in Minab was one of those misidentified targets, which US imperialism struck twice, massacring nearly 200 people—mostly children.
Government surveillance
Abroad, the US government uses AI to wage imperialist war. At home, it uses the technology to surveil ordinary people—particularly immigrants and political dissidents.
The firm Vigilant Solutions uses automatic license-plate recognition (ALPR) and a massive network of cameras to track vehicles. They then sell the information and tools. For example, police use it to find drivers with outstanding fines. If a cop pulls you over for a fine and you pay it, Vigilant gets a 25% cut!
It’s likely that the girls’ school in Minab was one of Maven’s misidentified targets, which US imperialism struck twice, massacring nearly 200 people—mostly children. / Image: Mortez Akhondi, Wikimedia Commons
Flock Safety, another ALPR company, shares video with over 5,000 law enforcement agencies. Flock claims federal agencies like ICE can’t directly access their services to find and arrest immigrants in their homes and workplaces. But local police gladly share the data to help ICE out.
In 2013, Palantir developed an app called Falcon to help ICE track where specific immigrants live and deport them. Now, Palantir is developing ImmigrationOS, which will find “suspicious” individuals and flag them for ICE to arrest and deport even faster. Coincidentally, Trump’s Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller has up to a quarter million dollars invested in Palantir.
Austerity
The armed bodies of men aren’t the only ones using AI for anti-worker warfare. Federal and local governments also use it to determine eligibility for programs like disability benefits, SNAP, unemployment, and Medicare. Under the guise of “combating fraud,” they apply AI to cut off the most vulnerable from their meager lifelines.
Michigan debuted the MiDAS program to detect fraud in unemployment payments. The system mistakenly flagged 40,000 people, punishing them by denying their tax refunds, garnishing their wages, and forcing them to pay huge fines. The consequences included bankruptcy, evictions, divorce, and even suicide.
In 2016, the Arkansas Medicaid program switched to AI to decide how many hours of care a disabled person would get. Half of the 8,000 people in the program had their care hours cut. According to a report from Techtonic Justice:
“People with conditions like cerebral palsy, quadriplegia, and multiple sclerosis faced cuts ranging from 20% to 50%, leaving them with so little care that they were forced to lie in their own waste, get bed sores from not being turned, miss medical appointments, and be totally shut in.”
Insurance companies also use AI to deny coverage all the time. For example, in health insurance, they use it to decide who gets “prior authorization,” which is double-speak for denying treatment that your doctor thinks you should get.
As long as the billionaires and trillionaires own and control AI tech, they’ll use it as a weapon in their class war against workers. A workers’ government would expropriate the big tech companies, overhaul these dystopian programs, and develop the technology under workers’ control to truly liberate, rather than subjugate, the population.