'Reclaiming the primacy of governance': 'The tech coup is unfolding before our very eyes'

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00:00Okay, turning to a different topic now and the impact of technology on our democracies.

00:04Initially seen as a powerful way of connecting politicians to the people,

00:09it was for example credited with the first successful run of Barack Obama for president.

00:14But it has since shown a darker side, used by authoritarian countries to hack and track

00:19any critic. But not just by them, technology is being used by most, many, perhaps all democracies,

00:25by police services in particular to track crime. Run by large corporations,

00:31these technologies and those who run them are not answerable to the people.

00:34The result is that more and more power is now in private hands,

00:38and it's not just our elections, but our daily lives that are paying the price.

00:42To tell us more, we can speak to former politician turned AI policy analyst, Marietje Schaak.

00:47Marietje Schaak, thanks for your time and joining us on France 24.

00:50Now you have a new book out, it's called The Tech Coup.

00:53Is that what it is? Is technology literally stealing power from under us?

00:59Well, indeed, power is leaking away from our democratically elected and accountable

01:03politicians and institutions to these private companies. And we see it everywhere. A recent

01:09example in Romania, for example, where a candidate that had no public profile through newspapers or

01:16television appearances, only through the use of TikTok and with strong accusations of using

01:23manipulative tactics, botnets, fake accounts, disinformation to get him elected, just shows

01:32how the algorithms of social media companies have an impact on our information diet and therefore

01:38on our democracies. But think also about the fact that companies are now putting satellites into

01:45space, allowing or disallowing internet connectivity for people, including in the

01:52battlefields in Ukraine. These are incredibly powerful positions of companies that are

01:57not accountable enough to the people. Let's name names. I mean, I'm thinking of Elon Musk

02:03and his Starlink satellite. You know, and Elon Musk, as we know now, has quite a close role

02:08to the incoming US government. Apart from controlling the internet, how much of an

02:16influence are you imagining blackouts of internet over certain areas or what influence,

02:22you know, might these satellites have on regular countries?

02:26Well, if you look at the decisions that Elon Musk has taken before, he basically is in a position

02:31to say we are or we are not going to grant this connectivity to people. And because he has such

02:37a strong geopolitical agenda, that basically means he can make key decisions that used to be

02:42the exclusive domain of states. And you're right that he is now incredibly close to the president

02:48elect Donald Trump. And I've never seen the kind of synergy between corporate interests of Elon

02:54Musk and the tech sector and the political leadership of the United States, the most

02:58powerful hub when it comes to technology. So the tech coup is really unfolding before our eyes,

03:04where we have seen vice president elect J.D. Vance threatening the EU with a pullout of the United

03:11States out of NATO. If EU lawmakers were to regulate Elon Musk's platforms or companies any

03:17further, this is the kind of connection and influencing of the political agendas by companies.

03:26And the case of Elon Musk makes this phenomenon very visible. A lot of times we see this power

03:32grab, erosion of democratic power to be a much more subtle and invisible process.

03:40When you look, and I'd like to look at that invisible process a little bit later, but when

03:44you look at the level it has reached, I mean, the ultimate question is what can be done about it now?

03:50Well, it's incredibly important that democratic leaders and governments see the reclaiming of

03:56the primacy of governance as a key goal in and of itself, and that that informs both short-term

04:02and long-term decisions. So in the EU, we are expecting to see a lot of investments, for example,

04:09the Draghi report, a key need to make sure that our economies are innovative enough,

04:15but to make those investments in ways that they strengthen public digital infrastructure,

04:21public values, more transparency, more security, more accountability,

04:26would be really important, just as one example.

04:29I don't want to sound defeatist, but it does all come down to money. And when you have companies

04:33like Apple that on the market are worth more than the stock exchanges of Germany and Australia,

04:38as you point out in your book, together, I mean, to what level do you think governments

04:43are going to be able to stand up to that amount of wealth and power?

04:49Well, it's incredibly important to see this problem through the lens of power and for

04:53democratic governments to use the variety of tools that they have to change this status quo,

04:58regulation being one of them, public procurement being another. Governments are important clients

05:04of tech companies, too, and can use that as leverage for better outcomes. And of course,

05:09investment. So if I look at the past four or five years in EU policymaking, there's been a lot of

05:15regulation. I don't expect that that tempo will be repeated in the next five years. So we must

05:21look at powerful enforcement using the purchasing power of governments for changes and a less strong

05:31grip by the big tech companies. And of course, these investments to create different markets,

05:37different incentives for innovation in Europe, but with a stronger emphasis on making sure that

05:42democratic leaders and institutions stay in charge.

05:46Yeah, because ultimately, the alternative is that we have businessmen at the top that we don't vote

05:52in or don't vote out and have little control over. I'm getting the idea of how this technology can

05:58influence the way people might vote or the disinformation they might have towards voting.

06:03But there's a myriad of other ways that it's impacting our daily lives.

06:08Oh, absolutely. I mean, there's a lot of hype now around artificial intelligence. And if we take one

06:13application, facial recognition systems, for example, we see that these tend to discriminate.

06:19A lot of AI applications discriminate. And that is, of course, illegal. But companies are still

06:24putting out these models, putting out generative AI models onto the market without a lot of testing

06:31or safeguards in the public interest. So really, we are living through a sort of experiment

06:37where other kinds of products, think about medicines that are new, have been tested,

06:43have been controlled, can only be put out into the public to patients after these

06:50precautionary steps. And so we need to make sure that we are putting up the right procedures,

06:57regulations, oversight mechanisms to make sure that we are not just allowing the release of

07:03either discriminatory or dangerous AI applications, even though that is what's happening now.

07:10Because there's so much people can be spied on, their computers can be hacked without ever

07:14clicking on a dangerous link or even knowing that our devices are being spied on, really.

07:20What can the individual do? Before we leave you briefly, Marietje Schaak.

07:24Individual internet users can really choose the best privacy protecting apps. So for example,

07:31the Signal app, when it comes to messaging, they can decline cookies to trace them on the internet.

07:37But most of all, they should really think twice about being online so much. It's highly addictive

07:44there are fraudsters and cyber criminals active there. So the fact that we are all addicted to

07:50our devices is one problem that hopefully people will think critically about for their children,

07:57but also for themselves. Indeed, the addiction, definitely another major topic. Marietje Schaak,

08:03we'll have to leave it there. But thanks so much for joining us here on France 24

08:06and giving us a glimpse of the price we're paying for our technology.

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