Opinion Editorial Archive October, 2023: AlphaDemocracy

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There were enough news stories last month to alarm us for the rest of the year. The most alarming for me was a study published by the Open Society Foundations. Among 36,000 people surveyed across thirty countries, only 57% of 18 to 35 year-olds thought that democracy was the most preferable form of government. Seventy-seven percent of them were even supportive of either authoritarian or military rule.

At the same time I read that report, Chilean president Gabriel Boric gave an impassioned speech defending democracy. His speech marked the fiftieth anniversary of Augusto Pinochet's military coup there. His country knows only too well how military rule can affect a people: That coup ousted the country's elected president and was followed by almost two decades of brutality. Still, some Chilean politicians justify that coup to this day. Democracy as a political system is losing support in most of South America.

The most recent country to suffer a military coup is Gabon in West Africa. There, last month, its self-declared leader, Brice Oligui Nguema, promised a return to democracy. That won't happen any time soon. We need look only at Burma (Myanmar) and Thailand for recent examples of such promises broken.

In the 2017 documentary, AlphaGo, the ancient board game, Go, is compared to geopolitics: A move early in the game can have ripple effects all the way to the end. So it was with the famous "Move 37." The artificially-intelligent AlphaGo made a move so unexpected that its opponent (Lee Sedol) and global commentators were stunned — thinking that the move was a huge mistake. Only later in the game did it become clear that the move was far from a mistake. It was in fact a creative and powerful move that almost no human Go player would ever consider.

In terms of military coups, the next geopolitical move may take place in the country where this month's photo was taken, Guatemala. Last month, both Brazil and the United States warned of such a coup based on recent attempts there to suspend president-elect Bernardo Arévalo's political party, Seed Movement. He is due to take office on January 14 2024.

The last military coup in Guatemala also led to decades of brutality. Among those worst impacted were indigenous Ixil Maya like those in this month's photo. Even if there is no military coup in the next few months in Guatemala, the Ixil Maya are unlikely to begin enjoying prosperity any time soon. The lifestyle shown in this photo will continue for a very long time. They already account for a large amount of the migration out of that country. (In the Open Society Foundations study, two-thirds of respondents wanted better treatment of migrants.)

Given the predictable failures at last month's United Nations General Assembly, it should not surprise us that some people are willing to consider political systems that they have never experienced. Those who live in token democracies have never experienced democracy. A case in point is last month's staging of "democratic elections" by Russia in occupied Ukrainian territories. Anyone regarding that as 'democracy' does not know what the word means. Anyone who dismisses the notion that ancient indigenous societies could have been democratic similarly does not know what that word means.

Just like AlphaGo taught us that we only thought we understood Go, we now need an artificially-intelligent AlphaDemocracy. That would be a good next move for the global AI community.

Last month, we learned about non-Homo sapien hominids' intelligence from 476,000 years ago. That intelligence has since regressed. Yet, last month, the best democracy that money can buy agreed to further regulate the development of artificial intelligence.

It would be even better if AlphaDemocracy were followed by AlphaEquality, AlphaPolitics, AlphaReligion, AlphaCustomerService, AlphaManagement and AlphaCommonSense.