Jan Bielecki: Is there a new world order?
THE ANXIETY OF OUR TIME
We live in an age of unpeace. Every day we see disturbing phenomena and unfavorable megatrends, but often – too often – we either downplay them or rely on our wishful thinking that they affect everyone, but for some reason not us, or that we would be lucky to miss them.
So we do draw conclusions from history, but only partly. The deteriorating environment of Poland and Europe is a fact. Demography, climate, migration, Russian aggression on Ukraine and China’s belief that its authoritarian model of political capitalism will prevail – all create enormous tensions. Raw materials have become important weapons once again – both oil and gas, and rare-earth materials – this is something that we have completely forgotten in the heyday of globalisation.
Capital and energy have their nationality, or rather a statehood. Energy, treated as something ubiquitous and cheap until recently, has become scarce or inaccessible again, especially in Europe. Wherever you look, this raises policy dilemmas or, as Professor Charles Goodhart called them, empirically verifiable problems.
On the one hand, we are aging and immigration could be a solution here. Yet the massive influx of migrants disrupts the functioning of societies and arouses resistance, which feeds specialists with simple recipes for complex problems. The energy transition in Europe is necessary, because we have both an energy deficit and the need to counteract climate change, which – as we have seen in recent weeks in Poland, Portugal or the USA – is increasingly manifesting catastrophic consequences. It is imperative that we develop and implement both short-term and long-term programs to address these issues, navigating the day-to-day needs of our nations and people. In-depth consideration must be given to how we do it, so as not to undermine European industry and economy, not overburdening citizens. An additional imperative is how to align this journey and its outcome together with the private sector.
On top of all this, we must embrace the social responsibility that is required by artificial intelligence, which is creating new information empires based on universal access to data and strangely gravitating towards authoritarian systems. As Mustafa Suleyman writes, the marriage of artificial intelligence and power is the most important dilemma of humanity in the 21st century. Your dilemma. This evolving technology catalases another wave of geopolitical change. And similar to previous waves in history, it can gravely disrupt our world again. Beware, it can hurt or even destroy us.
A democratic and open state is inherently vulnerable to attacks and destabilization, as this is the price we all pay for freedom and liberty. Poland has been a target of a hybrid warfare for several years with the progress in technology and artificial intelligence becoming tools in this war. An attack on a democratic state can also come from inside. We all know that it is easy to take over and deform the institutions that we have built as the foundation of our democratic order and a level playing field in the economy. An optimist would say that new technologies can overthrow authoritarianism. For the optimist, new technologies are a promise of the divine power of creation – this is what Harari writes.
“Artificial intelligence is creating new information empires based on universal access to data and strangely gravitating towards authoritarian systems”.
However, we now see how effectively such technologies are used to control society, surveil political opponents, spread disinformation, activate conspiracy theories and instigate societal destabilization. Regularly, we see the vile intent of using technology to influence the outcome of national elections. Already polarized societies are extremely susceptible to such manipulations. For us, Poles, these issues are important, because even when we were not an independent state, freedom was a core value that helped us survive and maintain our spirit.
The insatiable appetite of autocratic regimes is obvious: to suppress individual freedom at home with AI enabled surveillance. For democracies one main desire is to leverage technology and AI for political parties to increase polarization. Both China and Russia continue to leverage technology to accelerate the race to control their citizens. Also joining this race for control of people are specific ambitious billionaires who are competing or partnering with governments. Today, democratic countries face the problem of how to respond to this challenge. But this is the perfect time for us here, in Poland, to work together, reflect deeply and develop ways to tame this new wave. Our focus must be in how to build resilience and security through creativity and invention. Poland’s young people host the capabilities, education and talent to take up this role. Polish entrepreneurship and outstanding education provide a strong foundation for this endeavor.
Many young people from emerging countries work for leading technology companies in Europe and around the world. This is a great and positive potential that allows us to not be discouraged that the current trends take us into the undesirable unknown. We have the ability and capacity to oppose the anxiety of our time. We know that new technologies can be used not only to prevent threats, but can also be used to build new and positive bonds between people within and outside their nation. New technologies can serve not only authoritarianism and evil purposes, but can lead us to a world of freedom, democracy, and proper human and civil rights.
Together, let’s look for ways to counter and overwhelm the inevitability of negative trends through new sources of development, economic advantage and fair politics. We will not create an empire, but we will remain free and dignified. Free in a community built on the principles of cooperation, the rule of law and mutual respect. After all, we have experience behind us that can serve as a foundation for new solutions and accessible goals. Yes, we can control the world of unpeace by referring to the tradition of the Polish “Solidarity”. Seemingly hopeless cases do not always have to end in failure. In the first half of the 1980’s, when “Solidarity” was suppressed by the regime, none of us – underground opposition – thought that in just a few years, the fate of Poland would be so successful. Make no mistake, there was a huge disagreement with the surrounding reality in us. And that was our driving force. One of the most important engines of Polish history is Solidarity. This extraordinary peaceful social movement carried the responsibility of freedom, civic cooperation, debate and compromise as the building blocks of re-constituting our Polish nation. In the world in which we live now this historical national experience can become a point of reference in a bold and sensible setting of new paths and building resistance in the face of what would otherwise be unfavorable. Our history of faith in own strength combined with the collective strength wrapped together with our enduring faith in human solidarity, always allows us to look into the future with hope.
