Orwellian AI

The phrase Orwellian was famously coined after the publishing of George Orwell’s 1984 – a dystopian novel which follows the life of Winston Smith as he lives under a totalitarian regime working in ‘The Ministry of Truth’, where he changes the course of history to fit the will of the infamous dictator, ‘Big Brother’. We now use this term in reference to something we find highly surveyed, regulated, and intrusive.  

So how does this term relate to AI? 

You may believe that, when it comes to AI, we have the free will to choose to restrict its encroachment on our lives – using it only after a panic that your 50-page document will not be read in one night and suggesting to ChatGPT that it summarise your lengthy work in order for you to get a good night's sleep.  

This, in fact, is a lie.  

The truth is that we have been made to believe that AI is solely utilised to benefit people, making their lives easier by summarising endless paragraphs, creating shortcuts to information previously only found through websites, and even marking our responses to exam questions within seconds. These benefits seem appealing, especially to those overburdened with work and school, but in this sense, AI targets the most vulnerable people, contributing to the billions earned by corporate tech companies, who benefit from AI becoming integrated into everyday life. Artists and creatives in particular are suffering from the threat to their occupations, with a rise in AI generated music and images now discouraging the personal connections people have to art and its wider didactic messages. In just a few clicks, a piece of art which would have taken hours by hand can be generated within seconds, fundamentally removing personality and human effort.  

 Now, it is almost impossible to conduct a basic google search without receiving an AI overview in response – a clear example of one of the ways AI has managed to seep into our everyday lives, diminishing our capabilities by persuading us that our lives were so much more difficult before it was introduced. Predictive text, AI-enhanced camera settings, and personalised product suggestions when online shopping also exemplify our increasing dependency on AI, with most new editions of modern phones featuring AI more heavily than ever before.  

The reductive notion that we are unable to simply click on the link of a website and find the correct information for ourselves is blatantly annoying – so why do we continue to allow AI to do it for us?  

Often, it is put down to a question of time, the same excuses we use to explain why we do not read enough or spend enough time with our families. It is ridiculous, however, to claim this: what is the use of a shortcut if it is incorrect, or if we don’t truly understand its relevance?  

Even now our phones are linking every action and every word, explaining why we receive so many adverts related to our recent searches or conversations.  

It is this intrusiveness which has infiltrated our lives by creating no escape, ultimately resulting in a population reliant on technology to exist, and one distancing new generations from the practises of history; continuing our reliance could mean the next generation won’t grow up learning to read with their parents and the newly published versions of ‘Biff and Chip’, but with a robot built inside their devices –  the dystopian technology known as AI.   

Violet Crowton