Seriously, thank you for your service. I didn't want to face this article alone. I'll take the next section.

Early in the coronavirus outbreak, China’s citizens were subjected to a form of risk scoring. An algorithm assigned people a color code—green, yellow, or red—that determined their ability to take transit or enter buildings in China’s megacities. In a sophisticated digital system of social control, codes like these could be used to score a person’s perceived political pliancy as well.

Awesome use of new technology to keep people alive! And now for some irrelevant speculation.

A crude version of such a system is already in operation in China’s northwestern territory of Xinjiang, where more than 1 million Muslim Uighurs have been imprisoned, the largest internment of an ethnic-religious minority since the fall of the Third Reich.

Let's just uncritically repeat that number, again. Thanks, @Adrian_Zenz for your efforts!

Once Xi perfects this system in Xinjiang, no technological limitations will prevent him from extending AI surveillance across China. He could also export it beyond the country’s borders, entrenching the power of a whole generation of autocrats.

Entrenching the power of a generation of autocrats is definitely something the much-vaunted West has no interest in whatsoever, nope, nope, nope.

China has recently embarked on a number of ambitious infrastructure projects abroad—megacity construction, high-speed rail networks, not to mention the country’s much-vaunted Belt and Road Initiative. But these won’t reshape history like China’s digital infrastructure, which could shift the balance of power between the individual and the state worldwide.

Those dastardly bastards, building things! Also, shift it how? Which direction?

American policy makers from across the political spectrum are concerned about this scenario. Michael Kratsios, the former Peter Thiel acolyte whom Donald Trump picked to be the U.S. government’s chief technology officer, told me that technological leadership from democratic nations has “never been more imperative” and that “if we want to make sure that Western values are baked into the technologies of the future, we need to make sure we’re leading in those technologies.”

"Democratic nations", nice touch. One wonders what it would mean for Western values to be baked into the technologies of the future, but I guess that's not something worth discussing.

Despite China’s considerable strides, industry analysts expect America to retain its current AI lead for another decade at least.

China's target is 2030, so clearly they expect exactly the same thing.

But this is cold comfort: China is already developing powerful new surveillance tools, and exporting them to dozens of the world’s actual and would-be autocracies.

Such as?

Over the next few years, those technologies will be refined and integrated into all-encompassing surveillance systems that dictators can plug and play. The emergence of an AI-powered authoritarian bloc led by China could warp the geopolitics of this century. It could prevent billions of people, across large swaths of the globe, from ever securing any measure of political freedom. And whatever the pretensions of American policy makers, only China’s citizens can stop it. I’d come to Beijing to look for some sign that they might.

Wow. Just wow. I think it's my turn to take a break.