A recent virtual conference from the Hoover Institution provided insight into how the Chinese government is leveraging its advancements in computing to support not only its authoritarian regime but to offer those same services to other authoritarian regimes around the world.
The four-day program, “The Rise of Digital Authoritarianism: China, AI, and Human Rights,” was presented as a part of the institution’s project on China’s Global Sharp Power, chaired by Senior Fellow Larry Diamond and managed by Research Fellow Glenn Tiffert, the institution posted to its website.
Among presenters was former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who said that emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence is permitting authoritarian regimes to “dream big,” but that individual liberties and principles could be endangered by the U.S. and other countries trying to keep up, according to the post.
“We need to have a concerted effort on behalf of free peoples to make sure that the digital authoritarians don’t win,” Rice said in the post. “They can’t win the race for this technology because whoever wins this race is going to have a leg up on shaping the international system.”
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