In 2002, David Blunkett, the former British home secretary, proposed a bill requiring citizens to carry a personal identity card bearing their names, photographs, and home address. Britain is one of 11 countries that do not require their citizens to carry identification inside the country. The minister said at the time that the law was not only a security necessity, but was aimed primarily at providing a reliable database for social and economic planning. The bill provoked fierce controversy, and Parliament passed it in 2006 after substantial amendments had been made to it. But opposition continued, until the government backed down and decided to abolish it in 2010.
The main reason for the widespread opposition to that law was people's fear of the power that database managers would have over the details of their lives. This debate took place when the spread of the internet was still somewhat limited. There is no doubt that this concern has become more credible in our own time. The companies that own internet networks or operate social media platforms, as well as governments, know in detail the lives of each of us: our friends, our health and living conditions, our hobbies, the kind of clothes we buy, the countries we travel to, the books we read, and dozens of other details that would never occur to you. Hence the saying that the wars to come will be waged from behind screens rather than aboard tanks and aircraft.
Some readers may recall the controversy sparked by the US government's decision to ban the social media platform TikTok in 2020, after information emerged alleging that a significant segment of US military personnel, government employees, and their families were using an application operated by a Chinese company, leaving the military exposed to Chinese intelligence. The US government's concern about this application stems from its understanding of social platforms' ability to penetrate the personal lives of their users and those around them, even if they try to keep such information confidential.
At this point, some readers may have begun to wonder: are we talking about Michel Foucault's (1926-1984) vision of the place of human beings in the modern world?
In fact, I asked myself the same question after reading a statement last week by former Microsoft president Bill Gates, warning of an imminent danger in the form of uncontrolled artificial intelligence. Two points in his statement caught my attention: his warning about children becoming completely absorbed in artificial intelligence platforms and the data they provide, and the possibility of its being used by untrustworthy, and perhaps criminal, parties to control others, control their lives, or blackmail them.
Foucault's vision revolves around the relationship between knowledge and power, and the effect that the kinds of knowledge an individual acquires through his life experience have on his orientations and choices. He believes that the dominant powers in today's world are not interested in punishment or the harsh control of individuals. Rather, they exercise soft control, in which individuals participate of their own free will, and some may even find it appealing, even though it ultimately places their choices and wills in the hands of others. Did Jean-Jacques Rousseau not express his astonishment at the human being of this age who "walked on his own feet into the prison of the law"?
The dominant powers control individuals' lives through the meticulous organization of society, an organization that determines each individual's place within the social and economic order and instills in him enough knowledge to make this placement comfortable and acceptable.
Contemporary man, according to this view, is merely a number in the vast records stored in computer systems, not Zayd, Ahmad, or Abdullah. What do they care about your name or your father's name? You are simply a consumer of certain goods or a producer of others. What matters is what you do, not your existence in itself. What matters is that you accept the place that has been designated as suitable for you and see it as a blessing that should not be denied or replaced by imagined alternatives.
Does it not seem that we are living under the rule of the machines, or something close to it?
