A Big brother or a brave new world? How to prevent a double dystopia

AI carries the threat of bringing to life the chilling visions of Orwell and Huxley. We must work hard to fight against the convergence of micro-surveillance and digital inertia, argues Michael Yaziji

Although an oversimplification, examining how AI is used in China and the West through the lens of George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, and Neil Postman is illuminating. In China, AI’s encroachment into public and private life increasingly resembles Orwell’s 1984, reflecting a government-driven expansion of surveillance and control. In the West, AI’s profit-driven design seems to fulfill Huxley’s Brave New World prophecy, offering relentless streams of attention-grabbing content that threaten to trivialize civic discourse. Adding a further dimension is Postman’s warning, articulated in Amusing Ourselves to Death, that the medium by which we consume information shapes not only our habits but our modes of thinking. While it may appear that China and the West diverge sharply, the signs are that these models are converging, combining the most troubling features of both…

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I by IMD (Digital) - 1 Issue, 17. March 2025

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