Mark Leonard highlights how technology could bring about two dystopian visions of the future of mankind. He says the nightmarish scenario as depicted by George Orwell in his 1949 classic "1984" is already reality in China. Aldous Huxley's 1932 "Brave New World" helps explain why Trump won last year's election.

The author decribes how Xi Jinping has entrenched his authority, thanks to technology that has created China's first "information-age dictatorship." The country is already an Orwellian horror of a totalitarian survaillance state, with a one-party system and no personal freedom. The "Big Brother" seeks to "use Big Data, rather than brute force, to ensure stability" and collects "highly detailed information on the needs, feelings, and aspirations of ordinary Chinese" to detect any sign of discontent and preempt social unrest.

Trump's election has ushered in a new reality in America, where part of the population has become willing slaves to far-right totalitarianism. Kept docile and compliant, the slaves do not have to be coerced, because they lover their servitude. A craving for drugs and a surfeit of material goods replace spirituality. A lust for constant entertainment proffers a trivial culture. With the dominance of technology, the human race will be destroyed by ignorance long before 2540, more than 500 years ahead of Huxley's apocalyptic prediction in his "Brave New World.

The author points out the widespread use of "secret" algorithms that dominate our modern world of communication. Tech companies are increasingly capable of controlling the information we receive and the way we "perceive the world." Unable to separate wheat from chaff, more and more people become undecided, when facing the dilemma of making "conscious decisions," which - in a philosopher's eyes - would have been the "basic dimensions of free will."

In 2013 Edward Snowden disclosed National Security Administration’s massive snooping activities, and the role "sophisticated" algorithms play in sifting through and interpreting masses of data it collected from covert dragnet of international communications. He also "made clear that the state’s desire for omniscience is not limited to China." The US sees that the end justifies the means, when it comes to national security.

According to the author, the "impact of technology on politics is relatively independent of regime type. Technology is blurring the comforting distinction between open and closed societies, and between planned and free economies, ultimately making it impossible for either to exist in its ideal form." This explains why technology is a double-edged sword, that can be used to cut both ways by all parties.

The author fears that "in the digital age, the biggest danger is not that technology will put free and autocratic societies increasingly at odds with one another. It is that the worst fears of both Orwell and Huxley will become manifest in both types of system, creating a different kind of dystopia. With many of their deepest desires being met, citizens will have the illusion of freedom and empowerment. In reality, their lives, the information they consume, and the choices they make will be determined by algorithms and platforms controlled by unaccountable corporate or government elites."

Apparently, there are "good" and "bad" algorithms, and human beings can not all grapple with the vast amounts data. But the danger is that they could make false predictions which would take a devastating toll on those involved and affected.