As someone who tries to stay on top of the Artificial Intelligence news, I’ve wound up covering plenty of developments in the field, some including alarming warnings about problems AI could create for humanity in the future. These range from algorithms stealing all of our jobs to Terminator-style robots stalking the landscape looking for the remnants of humanity. But they all have one thing in common. Competing Silicon Valley eggheads race to create a machine that’s smarter than us and inevitably succeed, with the machines equally inevitably outsmarting us. But what if that’s not where the real danger lies? What if the worst possible outcome actually involves AI that remains “tame” and does just what the humans tell it to do? And what if those humans are the ones with truly evil intentions? What if they work for our own government?

That came to mind when I was reading Ben Bartee’s column at PJ Media about “Techno-hell” and how the government is working to use AI to detect “bad emotions” and wrongthink on social media. And who would do such a thing? The Department of Homeland Security is already working with an AI company to build a tool that would do precisely that. What could possibly go wrong?

When the government sets about to marry its limitless appetite for social control with the seemingly limitless computing power of artificial intelligence, the end result is destined to be Orwell’s “thoughtcrime” – a concept that was once exclusively in the domain of speculative fiction — becoming reality. Life imitates art, it seems.

Customs and Border Protection (CBP), under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has reportedly been partnering with an AI tech firm called Fivecast to deploy social media surveillance software that, according to its proprietor, purportedly detects “problematic” emotions of social media users and subsequently reports them to law enforcement for further action.

“Problematic emotions?” What precisely is that supposed to mean? This isn’t a case of HAL refusing to open the pod bay door. This is the government using AI to scour every thought expressed by people on social media and God only knows how many other communications channels and looking for people saying things that may lead them to “report them to law enforcement for further action.”

Once again, this is DHS that we’re talking about. They work with the Justice Department and between them, they control the FBI, intelligence agencies, and all the people who can currently buy your personal data from “publicly available sources” without getting a warrant. They’re the ones who can send agents to show up at your house and kick down your doors for praying at an abortion clinic or showing up at a school board meeting. Is that who you want holding the reins of the latest artificial intelligence and hooking it up to social media?

As Stephen Kruiser put it today, this is a far more disturbing situation than some of the other sci-fi AI scenarios we keep hearing about.

They didn’t even bother to buy us dinner and lull us into a sense of complacency; they just went straight to Big Brother Land.

In the best of times, this would be problematic if you’re on the libertarian/conservative side of things. It’s more frightening now that the Left hasn’t been at all shy about defining “problematic” as, “anyone who doesn’t agree with us.”

This isn’t a futuristic scenario where things might go badly. We still don’t know with any certainty that advanced general AI is even possible or can fully “wake up.” But we know for a fact that the large language model AI systems like ChatGPT are here today and they are increasing in speed and power in a frightening fashion. And what’s being discussed in this article is 100% absolutely within their current capability. This is happening today. And if you don’t think your own government would do this (even after learning that they’ve signed contracts with advanced AI developers), you haven’t been paying attention. This is the true nightmare scenario.