Ever wonder where the term ‘writing on the wall’ came from?

King Belshazzar of Babylon summoned the biblical character Daniel the Prophet to interpret the mysterious writing on the wall that appeared during one of his royal extravaganzas of debauchery. Daniel examined the writing and foretold the coming end to Belshazzar’s reign. His kingdom had been weighed and found wanting. It would be divided up between his enemies, and Belshazzar would be slain.

As a reward for his controversial interpretation, Daniel was thrown into a den of hungry lions.

Like ancient Babylon, we have our own proverbial, ‘writing on the wall’ that indicates a change is coming. Worshipping at the altar of technology, a woeful lack of introspection, and sclerotic decision-making are the key indicators that all together create conditions ripe for a new form of human governance to rise.

Enter cyberocracy; a form of ruling using technology and information. A study performed by David Ronfeldt in 1991 at the RAND Corps was one of the first authored works to explore this form of governance. The term cyberocracy still hasn’t entered into mainstream use, but AI-informed decision-making is no longer the stuff of science fiction. It doesn’t take any leap of the imagination to foresee a future where AI-based decisions may solve some of our thorniest conundrums surrounding energy use, crop management, and human governance.

I believe that we can interpret our current ‘writing on the wall’ as clear indicators that we are not only moving towards a cybercratic government, we are barrelling on all cylinders toward that destination.

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Technology as a God

We’ve all cursed technology at some point in our lives as a proverbial ‘ball and chain.’

If we go back to the ‘we’re in a tough spot’ playbook that humanity references in bad times, our best play revolves around some sort of material solution. All we need to do is place our trust in the next technological advancement, right? Modern agriculture, vaccinations, and the varied uses of electricity have improved human civilization in ways that are truly hard to fathom. Sure, there’s been a few bad eggs. Nuclear weapons and the poisoning of our public discourse by social media are two notable examples. But overall, placing our faith in the technology of the day has yielded good results.

Given our proclivity in ceding control over our lives to technology, it doesn’t stretch the imagination to think that Silicon Valley will soon offer government out-of-the-box solutions for sorely needed better decision-making. Laboring under that assumption, it really is only a matter of time until generative artificial intelligence is developed enough to rival, or exceed its human counterparts, in solid decision-making capacities.

The dawn of AI as a form of governance may sound like science fiction, but it is anything but. The only thing that is still up for grabs is to what extent it will be incorporated into existing institutions or if it will subsume them entirely. It will be a slow and innocuous transition that most will likely barely even notice.

In the words of The Million Dollar, “We have the technology.” It’s not a matter of if that technology arrives, it’s a matter of when. So the question we should ask ourselves is not can we use it, but how should we use it?

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Woeful lack of Introspection

For the uninitiated, the Trolley Problem is an ethical quandary that pits the good of the few (some poor soul tied to one set of tracks) against the good of the many (another group of poor souls tied to an adjacent track), and you have to throw the lever that decides who gets run over by the trolley and who doesn’t.

Do you want the hard truth or the soft truth?

I’ll give you the soft truth first. The soft truth is that people are hopelessly deficient in extending empathy to groups of people outside of their immediate tribe. You may be throwing your hands in the air in disagreement, but I promise you it is true. You would have to search your feelings in every nook and cranny to find a shred of understanding for someone experiencing personal hardship across the political aisle, as an example.

In fact, in lieu of empathy, you would likely feel an instinctive smugness worthy of a third grader’s best comebacks, ‘serves you right,’ or ‘told ya so.’ I experience this shortcoming on a daily basis, whether consciously or unconsciously.

And the hard truth? The hard truth is that American society at large reflects its citizen’s woeful lack of pluralized empathy. Our collective lack of understanding and empathy runs such a deficit that we often instinctively reach for indifference or outright cruelty in their places.

And what about the plight of those whom we may not know or even be aware of? Worse still, what if we somehow benefit from others’ suffering? Still worse, what if we are aware of the suffering that benefits us?

Our default instinct is to align our values with our tribe, for the preservation of the whole. Perhaps this is an evolutionary problem, and we are physiologically incapable of focusing on the empathetic needs of multiple groups, particularly those outside our tribe. The Trolley Problem is a 3D problem that requires a 4D solution. I would argue our current consciousness handicaps us to an unknown degree from seeing the whole from its parts.

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Sclerotic decision-making

Here’s where I’ll shift the blame to world leaders. Ask yourself a very simplistic question: how is it that a world leader can occupy a smaller and weaker nation by force, wreak untold havoc on its citizens, and convince his own country that all of this is done in the name of “the greater good?”

You won’t get the same answer from two different people, but they would likely both agree with the premise that humans have been at war with one another since they could lift a stick and throw a rock.

I won’t argue with them on this. However, the fact that world leaders are now armed with cataclysmic weaponry (and not just sticks and stones) changes the consequences of their decision-making to an unacceptable degree. If the hands on the Doomsday Clock are any indicator, humanity can no longer afford thinly veiled selfish interests masquerading as “the greater good.”

Don’t even get me started on current approval ratings for world leaders by its citizens. Fun Fact: The World Economic Forum has predicted that legislatures are prime candidates for job replacement by AI.

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It remains to be seen precisely how the cyberocracy will fully manifest into existence. Perhaps it could be initiated in the halls of government itself. For this to occur, the government in question would require high levels of trust with its people and be technologically advanced. I believe the most likely scenario is that a machine-learning enterprise (Alphabet, IBM, Nvidia, etc…) will begin to offer services to the public sector that enable an unparalleled level of sound decision-making. For the most part, this will likely be done willingly. Until one day, people wake up and realize they are being governed more by an algorithm than an elected body.

This will enrich the coffers of wealthy corporations and shareholders who are dual-hatted as lawmakers. It’s a win-win for everybody. And if algorithms can indeed make better decisions than human officials, then maybe even the average Joe and Jane may be better off too. Maybe…

It’s not my intent to frighten you. As I mentioned, there could be tangible benefits from ceding decision-making and problem-solving from humans to machines. We must be vigilant against unseen powerbrokers that act as ‘humans behind the loop,’ and can manipulate the machine’s decisions for their benefit. If that is permitted to occur, then the vicious cycle of poor decision-making enabled by a lack of introspection will cause the Doomsday clock to tick forward once again.