It is not the algorithms themselves, but those who design them and define their goals.

It’s not Big Tech and AI that are threatening democracy and sparking a new Cold War, it’s the political vision of those that design their codes and the unchecked hold on power that allows them to make those visions a reality. AI and algorithms are merely tools that are ways to maintain and extend status quo political landscapes.

Authoritarian states may use these tools to centralize control, while democracies can use them to expand and modernize people-power.

It has been decided that AI as the way of the future, for better or for worse. And in this environment, deciphering between the actual impacts of AI in governance and prophetic polemics is becoming harder; the task more inaccessible even as the stakes for understanding it grow by the day.