The combination of governments and technologies “can and will facilitate the development of a surveillance state, the scope of which optimistic pessimists of totalitarianism such as George Orwell could scarcely imagine,” Mr. Peterson said on Capitol Hill on March 7.
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Psychologist and author Jordan Peterson warned members of the U.S. Congress that the collusion of governments with banks, along with emerging technologies like digital identity systems and central bank digital currencies, could turn countries into totalitarian surveillance states.
Mr. Peterson said around the world there appears to be a collusion between “gigantic, self-interested corporations and paranoid security-obsessed anti-human governments.” He said these two entities are using online data and sophisticated algorithms to develop images, “not only of our actions, but of our thoughts and words, so that deviation from the desired end can be mapped, rewarded, and punished.”
The Canadian psychologist warned that with corporations increasingly able to track the purchasing decisions and online patterns of users, as well as develop algorithms to predict future actions, the information could be used to “track, monitor, and punish everything we do and say.”
Mr. Peterson also raised concerns about the Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) being explored and developed by some countries and about which critics have raised privacy concerns. The Bank of Canada has said it is exploring the possibility of issuing a CBDC, but in an August 2023 report noted there are “significant” barriers to adoption.
China’s Surveillance System
Mr. Peterson brought up China’s social credit system, saying it allows the Chinese Communist Party to have “full control” over the online access of its citizens. The country’s social credit system gives each citizen an electronic score that can be raised or lowered depending on their behaviour. Those with low enough scores can be denied access to jobs, public transportation, and banking.
“This allows you purposefully to be shut out of all activities that can be virtualized, and in a rapidly virtualizing world, this increasingly means all activities: driving, shopping, working, eating, finding shelter, even fraternizing with friends and family,” Mr. Peterson said.
He warned that since many countries in the West had copied China’s strategy of implementing lockdowns in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, they could also be “walking step by step in the same direction” as that country’s social credit system.
When asked about the possibility of using surveillance and artificial intelligence to increase public safety, Mr. Peterson said privacy often seems to be eliminated to neutralize an “immediate proximal” threat, which he called “a short-term justification for engaging in a tremendous long-term danger.”