The Repressive Power of Artificial Intelligence

Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are amplifying a crisis for human rights online. While AI technology offers exciting and beneficial uses for science, education, and society at large, its uptake has also increased the scale, speed, and efficiency of digital repression. Automated systems have enabled governments to conduct more precise and subtle forms of online censorship. Purveyors of disinformation are employing AI-generated images, audio, and text, making the truth easier to distort and harder to discern. Sophisticated surveillance systems rapidly trawl social media for signs of dissent, and massive datasets are paired with facial scans to identify and track prodemocracy protesters. These innovations are reshaping an internet that was already under serious threat. Global internet freedom declined for the 13th consecutive year in 2023. Of the 70 countries covered by Freedom on the Net, conditions for human rights online deteriorated in 29, while only 20 countries registered overall gains. For the ninth consecutive year, China was found to have the worst conditions for internet freedom, though Myanmar came close to surpassing it. The year’s largest decline occurred in Iran, followed first by the Philippines and then by Belarus, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua. In more than three-fourths of the countries covered by the project, people faced arrest for simply expressing themselves online. And governments in a record 41 countries resorted to censoring political, social, or religious content. Key findings:

• Global internet freedom declined for the 13th consecutive year.
• Attacks on free expression grew more common around the world.
• Generative artificial intelligence (AI) threatens to supercharge online disinformation campaigns.
• AI has allowed governments to enhance and refine their online censorship.
• To protect internet freedom, democracy’s supporters must adapt the lessons learned from past internet governance challenges and apply them to AI.