Dominic Cummings is the mastermind behind Brexit's communication campaign. After successfully guiding the Leave issues to the referendum on staying in Europe, Cummings planned the next step.
The strategic advisor to the man who got the UK parliament suspended has published a series of blog posts detailing the mechanics of his campaign. He then described the possible applications of his method for him reform the concept of social status in the UK after Brexit.
The last post of this type is dated June 26, 2019: two weeks after Theresa May resigned as Prime Minister. A few days later, Cummings became a special adviser to Boris Johnson. The man who took up May's baton at the helm of the country. The one who yesterday obtained from the Queen to suspend the English parliament until October 14th.
The Hyper-Technological Social Status of Cummings
The basic idea, the underlying theme of this blog discussion is to resurrect the great social policies in the UK, which died at the end of the 70s, by letting them be guided by data. A data-driven welfare policy, a bit like using the mechanisms of Cambridge Analitica for good. Could the suspension of the UK parliament be the first step towards the rebirth of a different political model? A bit as if the State used what it knows about us to do something better than showing us targeted advertisements, but giving us targeted aid.
What does it look like?
From the description of this system I get the impression of seeing a "cyborg" version of Athenian democracy. A model where there are stronger leaderships (at the time Pericles) but a widespread group of citizens with technical knowledge (at the time they were simply males of battle age) who develop laws suggested by the entire population.
The main difference with that model is that instead of directly suggesting, the actions and choices of the population would directly guide the laws. Choices and actions filtered through data collection methods and algorithms artificial intelligence not far from those who proposed targeted political propaganda in the election campaign.
A company no longer driven by the market, but by facts.
The enormous amount of data collected can allow us to create accurate models and simulations. Lawmakers could “test” the effects of laws in advance (“what would happen if drugs became legal?”) and also refine them based on the results. A policy that would become a real model of "prototyping society".
Meanwhile in Russia
A "cybernetic" economic policy driven by data was also feared by the economist (and Nobel Prize winner) Leonid Kantorovich and by the mathematician and computer scientist Victor Glushkov. The two hypothesized the possibility of going even further: making machines work directly on the development of optimal solutions in the management of economic resources. Leave it to politicians only to define the objectives (for example "obtain the maximum employment balance" or "reduce energy dependence on foreign countries") and obtain the "recipe" of how to use the money well to achieve them.
However, the most pioneering attempt to automate economic policy was in Chile. Il Cybersyn project led by consultant Stafford Beer during the government of Salvador Allende aimed to help the economy with information technology. It was totally eliminated by the coup d'état of General Augusto Pinochet).
Although today we tend to identify social "control" and "management" with a reactionary technocracy, the contribution of the computer in the organization of states has a precise place in the socialist political spectrum. Some will object that it is still a matter of "managing" and "controlling" society. What should I tell you. The difference between what is still identified today with 'right' and 'left' is the one between the use of tools and the intentions with which they are used.
The market
In contrast to the vision of cybernetic society there are precisely the "fathers" of modern liberal economies, Ludwig von Mises e Friedrich von Hayek. They simply consider the “cyber dream” impossible. They essentially believe that there will never be enough computing power to take into account all the factors that shape society.
They observe that there is already a "cybernetic" model around: the famous Market, also regulated by algorithms and data. Just like "the market", the ability to regulate itself by providing everyone with the best possible solution has turned out to be a resounding lie. This leads to a conclusion: the right society is not the one in which everything is regulated by the choice of "solutions", but the one which also prepares the correct processes to obtain them. To be clear, a computer can tell us that we will be able to convert all intensive farming into more economical, healthy and ecological plantations, but in the meantime we will have to manage millions of farmers left without work. They too will need to be managed.
The revolt
Cummings is behind Boris Johnson's choices, it was said. The suspension of the UK parliament could also be his work. His vision, decidedly oriented towards a cybernetic society, postpones the problem of the liberal economy. The UK, in fact, is the first modern nation to have made a choice deliberately contrary to the laws of the "Markets". In a price-driven society, Cummings says, the supreme contradiction is that economics can't solve anything.
Could advances in artificial intelligence overturn the bad predictions of market devotees? Probably. An appropriately trained AI can develop solutions on services and policies suitable for combating all social problems and designing a better future. We need to work on these intelligences, however. Current AIs lack “common sense”. Paradoxically they cannot yet be applied on a social scale because they are not used enough... on a social scale.
Artificial intelligence is currently used (and there are plans to use it) in a predictive way ("will person W?”). Orwellian scenarios that neither philosophers nor people like. But all projects go through failures before experiencing success, and Cummings thinks that artificial intelligence used for the purpose of "prevention and control" is only a parenthesis before finding the right use for AI for humanity.
And let's go back to Brexit
How did a gesture that seems almost "warlike" like the suspension of the UK parliament come about? Brexit for Cummings (and consequently for Johnson) is necessary to "destroy" civil society enough to be able to rebuild it. A fully independent UK could adopt social policy solutions based on artificial intelligence (which would be another way of calling scientific planning). The UK, in Cummings' vision, could develop projects that could shape the future.
What continues to surprise me (but won't for long) is how a truly authentically "socialist" goal is being pursued through "right-wing" parties. How can AI be used to scientifically produce well-being in people who retire later and later, live in a system of increasingly private services and make people accept ever greater restrictions on immigration?
It is really difficult to imagine a European Union that scientifically plans its future (a bit like the "five-year plans" of Soviet memory): it would go against all current principles. How would “the markets” react? However, it is difficult for me to even imagine the United Kingdom itself engaged in this undertaking. All things considered, I too have been "plagiarized" into believing that "the market" is currently the only terrain on which nations can survive.
But that's the truth?
