我为什么不愿意看到中国的科技进步 Why I Am Unwilling to Celebrate China’s Technological Progress

首先不可否认的一点，中国近年来在科技上的成就是世界瞩目的，无论是AI产业，机器人，电动汽车等等，都在以惊人的速度发展着，很多老中人也一如既往的为祖国的科技发展骄傲自豪。但是我不仅完全没有这种自豪感，反而忧心忡忡，这倒不是因为我作为铁杆汉奸，见不得中国人过好日子，而是我深知，中国的科技越进步，中国人未来就越惨，推翻共产党的代价也就越大，离民主也就更遥不可及了。

在几个月前，我的一位国内朋友，曾愤愤不平地给我转发了几个视频和截图，内容大概是河北强推农村“煤改气”，但每月数千元甚至上万元的取暖费用，以农村老人微薄的养老金根本无力负担，甚至入不敷出。于是河北的农村老人只能选择多穿衣服硬扛寒冬，但是零下十几度的极寒哪里是几件破棉衣扛得住的，于是实在扛不住就偷偷烧煤烧柴取暖，原本这只是一个典型的“上有政策，下有对策”的中国特色案例，但架不住近年来我党统治下的中国科技进步确实牛逼，而我党又是出了名的“干好事千疮百孔，干坏事天衣无缝”，当地政府面对这种情况，除了往常的”鼓励邻里相互监督举报“以外，竟然还机智的选择使用无人机巡逻农村，实时监控是否有农民偷偷烧煤烧柴取暖，一经发现便没收工具并处以数千元的高额罚款。以至于有一些老人竟然因为负担不起燃气费，又不敢偷偷烧柴，最终活活冻毙。在21世纪，这种事发生在任何现代国家，都会引起舆论的轩然大波，媒体和民众也会群情激愤，对政府百般问责，唯独中国，很快这件事就被全网封杀，禁止讨论，而民众也都习以为常，好像一早就知道会是这个结果似的。只能说，任何丧尽天良灭绝人性的事，只要一旦和我党沾上边，好像大家突然就恍然大悟了——是共产党干的啊！那就不奇怪了，都散了吧。

无人机监控烧煤只是“科技害民”的一个极小的例子，类似的例子数不胜数，例如我党曾经主动发表视频提及的“遥控装甲”——装备“装甲”的士兵在被俘或失去战斗力后，后方的技术人员可以选择远程操控装甲引爆销毁，如此视人命如草芥，妥妥反人类的武器，我党第一时间想到的居然是“我真牛逼，赶紧发出来让大家一起膜拜”，这种恐怖分子的思维逻辑放眼世界，也就只有我党和少数几个“正义联盟”的成员国想的出来了，真是让人叹为观止，当然在这个视频引发舆论哗然之后，我党也一如既往地光速删除了该视频。

目前世界上最火的产业毋庸多言，一定是AI产业，AI每一天的发展都是日新月异，而我党对于AI也是无比重视，但是跟其他国家希望用AI提高生产力不同，我党更希望利用AI稳固自身的统治地位，所以审查、监控肯定是重头戏，早些年我党就以举世闻名的天眼系统实时监控整个国家，未来随着AI技术的发展， 加上我党“党在法上”的权威，可想而知异见人士的处境将更加举步维艰，个人再无隐私可言，一言一行都将经过AI的首先审核，譬如微信，长期以来微信的监控更多的是在群聊的范围，也就是群组内的消息会被实时监控并且和“色情、暴力、我党负面”有关的信息会被及时屏蔽并删除，而个人私聊某种程度上还是可以发一些“大尺度”的照片，但是上个月我在与朋友私聊时，我发出的一张习近平穿肚兜的恶搞照片被自动屏蔽，之后又试了几张曾经能发出去的照片，发现也是一样的结局，可见现在审查功能已然完全延申到了私聊功能，而AI技术的进步，也意味着未来这种审查与监控的成本会下降，我党不再需要每年支出大量的人力与“维稳费”，当然这不代表我党会把省下的钱投入到民生，毕竟我党的根本利益从来就是维持共产党的统治，人民这玩意儿就跟卫生纸一样，需要的时候用一下，用完了扔进废纸篓就行了。省下来的钱用来多关几个不知好歹的异见分子，用来和“正义联盟”的兄弟们打好关系难道不香吗？

我为什么不愿意看到中国的科技进步，因为在我看来中国的根子就是歪的，所以中国的科技发展也只会在“助纣为虐”的道路上越走越远，科技越发达，中国人的未来就越绝望。像华为这种公司做到世界第一又如何呢？是中国人能买到更加便宜好用的手机？还是更好的保护用户的隐私？都不是，在一个“党领导一切”的国家里，他们只会更加卖力的维护我党的统治，充当掌控民众的爪牙，因为这既是他们赖以生存的第一准则，也是他们能够做大做强的根本法宝，所以我深切的为中国的科技进步感到悲哀。

Why I Am Unwilling to Celebrate China’s Technological Progress

One point must be acknowledged at the outset: in recent years, China’s achievements in science and technology have been striking by any global standard. Whether in artificial intelligence, robotics, electric vehicles, or a host of other fields, the country has been advancing at an astonishing pace. Many Chinese, as ever, take immense pride in these developments and feel a deep sense of national accomplishment. I, however, feel none of that pride. On the contrary, I find these developments deeply troubling. This is not because I am, as some would sneer, a hardened traitor who cannot bear to see Chinese people prosper. It is because I know that the more technologically advanced China becomes, the grimmer the future for Chinese people will be, the higher the cost of overthrowing the Communist Party, and the more remote any prospect of democracy will become.

A few months ago, a friend of mine in China sent me several videos and screenshots in obvious anger. Their contents were roughly as follows: in Hebei, the authorities had been aggressively enforcing a rural “coal-to-gas” conversion policy, yet the monthly heating costs — often running into several thousand yuan, and sometimes even over ten thousand — were far beyond what elderly villagers could possibly afford on their meagre pensions. Many were left with no choice but to endure the winter by piling on extra clothing. Yet when temperatures plunge to ten or even twenty degrees below zero, a few threadbare cotton coats are no defence against the cold. So, when they could bear it no longer, some would secretly burn coal or firewood for warmth. Ordinarily, this would simply be another familiar Chinese story of “where there is a policy from above, there is a countermeasure below”. But under Party rule, China’s technological progress has indeed become formidable, and the Party has long excelled at one particular art: when it tries to do something good, it leaves chaos in its wake; when it does something evil, it often does so with chilling efficiency.

Faced with this situation, the local authorities did not stop at the usual tactic of “encouraging neighbours to supervise and report on one another”. They also made the ingenious decision to deploy drones to patrol the villages, monitoring in real time whether any peasants were secretly burning coal or wood for heat. Once discovered, they would have their tools confiscated and be fined several thousand yuan. As a result, some elderly people, unable to afford gas and terrified of secretly burning wood, reportedly ended up freezing to death. In the twenty-first century, were such events to occur in any modern country, they would provoke a storm of public outrage. The media and the public alike would demand answers and hold the government to account. In China alone, the matter was swiftly scrubbed from the internet, banned from discussion, and the public reacted with a weary resignation, as though everyone had known all along that this would be the outcome. One can only conclude that whenever some appalling outrage, some act of cruelty devoid of conscience, is tied to the Communist Party, people suddenly seem to understand at once: oh, the Party did it — then there is nothing surprising here. Disperse. Move on.

Drone surveillance of villagers burning coal is only one tiny example of how technology can be turned against the people. Similar examples are too numerous to count. One such case involved what the Party itself once publicised in a video: so-called “remote-controlled armour”. A soldier wearing such equipment, once captured or rendered combat-ineffective, could have the armour remotely detonated by technicians in the rear in order to destroy it. It is a weapon system that treats human life as utterly expendable — straightforwardly inhuman in its logic. And yet the Party’s first instinct was apparently: how brilliant we are, let us show this off so that everyone may marvel. This terrorist cast of mind is so grotesque that, globally speaking, only the Chinese Communist Party and a small number of its fellow members in its so-called “league of justice” could produce such a way of thinking. It would be laughable were it not so horrifying. Naturally, once the video triggered public uproar, it too was deleted with the Party’s customary speed.

The hottest industry in the world today hardly needs naming: it is artificial intelligence. The development of AI is accelerating with every passing day, and the Party attaches enormous importance to it. Yet whereas other countries hope to use AI to improve productivity, the Party’s overriding ambition is to use it to consolidate its rule. Censorship and surveillance will therefore be central. Years ago, the Party was already using its notorious “Skynet” system to monitor the country in real time. With future advances in AI, coupled with the Party’s insistence that it stands above the law, one can easily imagine how much more unbearable life will become for dissidents. Privacy, for the individual, will cease to exist. Every word and every action will first be subjected to machine scrutiny.

Take WeChat as an example. For many years, its surveillance mechanisms appeared to operate primarily in group chats: messages inside groups were monitored in real time, and material involving pornography, violence, or content deemed harmful to the Party was swiftly censored and deleted. Private one-to-one chats still seemed, to a certain extent, to permit the exchange of more provocative images. Yet just last month, while chatting privately with a friend, I tried to send a parody image of Xi Jinping wearing a dudou, and it was automatically blocked. I then tried several other images that had previously gone through without difficulty, only to find that they too were now being intercepted. This suggests that censorship has now fully extended into private messaging as well. As AI technology improves, the cost of this surveillance and censorship will fall. The Party will no longer need to spend vast sums each year on manpower and so-called “stability maintenance”. Of course, this does not mean the money saved will be redirected into public welfare. The Party’s fundamental interest has never been the welfare of the people; it has always been the preservation of Communist rule. The people are, to the Party, much like toilet paper: useful when needed, disposable once used. And what better use for the money saved than locking up a few more troublesome dissidents and currying favour with the Party’s brothers-in-arms in its authoritarian camp?

Why am I unwilling to celebrate China’s technological progress? Because, in my view, the roots of the Chinese system are fundamentally warped, and so any technological development that grows from that soil will only travel further down the road of abetting tyranny. The more advanced the technology, the more hopeless the future for ordinary Chinese people. What does it matter if a company such as Huawei becomes the best in the world? Does that mean Chinese consumers will gain access to cheaper, better phones? Does it mean their privacy will be better protected? Neither. In a country where “the Party leads everything”, such firms will only work harder to defend the Party’s rule and to serve as its instruments for controlling the populace. That is both the first principle of their survival and the essential reason they are able to grow so large and powerful. That is why I regard China’s technological progress not with pride, but with profound sorrow.