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Thom Hartmann: The AI Authoritarian Threat
https://hartmannreport.com/p/the-ai-authoritarian-threat. . .
Authoritarians—whether MAGA-aligned in the United States or part of the global movement that includes Putin, Orbán, Modi, MBS, and others—are not blind to the potential of AI. They understand it instinctively: its ability to pretend to be human, to deceive, to surveil, and to dominate. While progressives and democratic institutions are scrambling to get a handle on its implications, authoritarians in America, Russia, and around the world have already started weaponizing it with devastating efficiency.
A single AI machine can now generate millions of personalized political messages in seconds, each calibrated to manipulate voters’ specific fears or biases. It can (and currently is being used to) create entire fake news outlets, populate them with AI-generated journalists, and flood your social feed or web search with content that looks real, sounds real, and feels familiar, all without a single human behind it. Imagine the power of Joseph Goebbels’s propaganda machine, but with superintelligence behind the wheel and zero friction. That’s where we’re heading in the 2028 presidential election.
And that’s just the beginning.
Authoritarian regimes can—and already are—using AI to surveil and intimidate their citizens. What China has perfected with facial recognition, social media, and loyalty scoring, MAGA-aligned figures in the United States are rushing to adopt and adapt. Right-wing sheriffs and local governments could soon use AI to track protesters, compile digital dossiers, and “predict” criminal behavior in communities deemed politically undesirable. If the government knows not just where you are, but what you’re thinking, organizing, or reading—and it can fabricate “evidence” to match—freedom of thought (much less freedom of expression) becomes a quaint memory.
This isn’t theoretical. In 2024, Republicans deployed AI-generated robocalls impersonating Joe Biden telling voters to stay home, and millions did. In the next cycle, it’s safe to predict that we’ll see entire portions of election campaigns waged by AI bots masquerading as voters, influencers, news media, and even public officials.
The goal here for the hard right that doesn’t embrace democracy but wants America to become an authoritarian state isn’t just to win; it’s to delegitimize the democratic process itself as Orbán and Putin have done. Because once trust is broken—once people believe that “both sides lie” or that “you can’t believe anything anymore”—then, inevitably (history tells us), strongmen step into the void with promises of order, purity, and salvation.
Authoritarians—whether MAGA-aligned in the United States or part of the global movement that includes Putin, Orbán, Modi, MBS, and others—are not blind to the potential of AI. They understand it instinctively: its ability to pretend to be human, to deceive, to surveil, and to dominate. While progressives and democratic institutions are scrambling to get a handle on its implications, authoritarians in America, Russia, and around the world have already started weaponizing it with devastating efficiency.
A single AI machine can now generate millions of personalized political messages in seconds, each calibrated to manipulate voters’ specific fears or biases. It can (and currently is being used to) create entire fake news outlets, populate them with AI-generated journalists, and flood your social feed or web search with content that looks real, sounds real, and feels familiar, all without a single human behind it. Imagine the power of Joseph Goebbels’s propaganda machine, but with superintelligence behind the wheel and zero friction. That’s where we’re heading in the 2028 presidential election.
And that’s just the beginning.
Authoritarian regimes can—and already are—using AI to surveil and intimidate their citizens. What China has perfected with facial recognition, social media, and loyalty scoring, MAGA-aligned figures in the United States are rushing to adopt and adapt. Right-wing sheriffs and local governments could soon use AI to track protesters, compile digital dossiers, and “predict” criminal behavior in communities deemed politically undesirable. If the government knows not just where you are, but what you’re thinking, organizing, or reading—and it can fabricate “evidence” to match—freedom of thought (much less freedom of expression) becomes a quaint memory.
This isn’t theoretical. In 2024, Republicans deployed AI-generated robocalls impersonating Joe Biden telling voters to stay home, and millions did. In the next cycle, it’s safe to predict that we’ll see entire portions of election campaigns waged by AI bots masquerading as voters, influencers, news media, and even public officials.
The goal here for the hard right that doesn’t embrace democracy but wants America to become an authoritarian state isn’t just to win; it’s to delegitimize the democratic process itself as Orbán and Putin have done. Because once trust is broken—once people believe that “both sides lie” or that “you can’t believe anything anymore”—then, inevitably (history tells us), strongmen step into the void with promises of order, purity, and salvation.
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