In the popular Marvel film, ‘Captain America: The Winter Soldier’, the villainous organisation Hydra develops an advanced computer algorithm that mines every citizen’s digital history to predict if they might pose a threat to the government in the future. A Chinese company is now on the verge of turning this science fiction plot into reality by developing an artificial intelligence-powered technology that would help authoritarian governments to not only monitor dissenters but also predict who could become one in the future.
The company, Geedge Networks, sells a commercial version of the surveillance and censorship software used by the Chinese government to control online activity. Leaked company documents revealed that it is working on new technology that uses AI to analyse location data and internet usage to predict who may criticise the government in the future, the New York Times reported.
“This is what happens when mass surveillance meets AI. Without checks and balances, what China is doing to its own citizens is a preview of what becomes possible anywhere these tools go unchecked,” Brett J Goldstein, Director of the Wicked Problems Lab at Vanderbilt’s Institute of National Security, told the New York Times.
According to researchers at Vanderbilt, the technology being developed by Geedge will generate profiles of Chinese citizens and then use AI to identify who may be a possible risk.
Geedge researchers initially worked on developing behavioural profiles of people based on telecommunications, social media and location data in 2024. They would then use AI models to categorise people and identify harmful information.
“Geedge’s research team was doing more than just documenting behavioural patterns. They were trying to predict what citizens might do next and with whom. Those stockpiles of data on ordinary materials are raw materials for generating profiles that determine who you are and what you will do next,” Brett V Benson, a political science professor at Vanderbilt, told the New York Times.
Vanderbilt researchers said that the leaked documents suggest Geedge was trying to connect the physical movement of people with their online activity, such as what movies they watched and what books they read.
Geedge’s progress, however, seems to have slowed down due to Biden-era export restrictions on US-designed computer chips that power AI. While the Trump administration has restricted the most advanced processors from Nvidia, US officials recently said that China will now gain access to a more advanced version of the Nvidia chips following Trump’s recent visit to Beijing.
