Last year, the state Senate Transportation and Culture and the Arts Committee set off a firestorm when it heard Senate Bill 2314, which proposed to create a digital identification pilot project.

Though the measure had merit in that a unified digital identity would make things more convenient for Hawaiʻi residents, in the absence of legal protections regarding how the identities may be used, several testifiers rightfully opposed it as what one of them referred to as potentially leading to a “social credit score system used by the (Chinese Communist party).”

The Chinese system is a citizen trustworthiness score which evolved from its “grid-style social management system” of mass surveillance. A combination of financial, social and judicial ratings, it is effectively a way for the Chinese government to reward or punish citizens with access or denial to things like banking and housing.

Though the Senate’s transportation committee canned the well-meaning measure in the face of public pressure, the world is ultimately moving in a direction where “Big Tech” — privatized control of digital services along with the proliferation of artificial intelligence — will create a de facto social credit system if we don’t provide legal protections to stop that.

AI Is Already ‘Shadowbanning’

Oracle founder Larry Ellison shocked business and political observers in September when at a company meeting he suggested that in the future, “Citizens will be on their best behavior, because we’re constantly recording and reporting on everything that’s going on.” And if you think that kind of micromanagement might be annoying, Ellison went on to suggest even police will be policed by AI and instantly flagged if they do something wrong.

The attendance by Big Tech billionaires front and center at President Donald Trump’s inauguration in January raised more than a few eyebrows as people wondered what kind of influence they might have over the new administration.

It’s important to note that while a government may not impose restrictions on an individual per se, if both private and government entities alike use the same technology, whoever (or whatever) controls the technology controls the people and the government.

As it is, if you’re someone who uses a product like Facebook by Meta, and you’ve used it for many years, you’ll likely notice that the AI that powers the social media platform is so glitchy that it will impose penalties for perceived violations made years ago, and often one can’t directly appeal these penalties with a human. In my case, I had a strike made against me more than 16 years ago in error, and I can’t use Facebook ads to this day because of a penalty imposed against me. 

We can already see problems arising where AI is “shadowbanning” — that is, restricting who sees what content — on social media. This has the danger of raising the profile of extreme people who advocate dehumanizing or mistreating certain population groups, while preventing less viral but more level-headed people from being seen on a social network.

Imagine what it would be like to have a society so thoroughly digitized and controlled by AI and run by private corporations or individuals that you get restrictions on services and can’t appeal anything. This is why IBM in the 1970s used to give training presentations to employees that included the phrase, “A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision.”

Fast-forward to our present day. The so-called Department of Government Efficiency, under executive order, now has the mandate of a “software modernization initiative” and “data collection and synchronization.” The Economic Times reported last month that Elon Musk even wanted to make deportation and visa decisions with AI.

For full transparency and disclosure, I have a subscription with Musk’s X social media service and I regularly use the Grok AI service that he provides for assistance in academic research and data analysis. I’ve also written in the past about the benefits of AI, if used properly.

But what I am concerned about, in this context, is that if we do not have human-imposed checks and balances that prevent private companies from imposing a de facto social credit score on us, we could unintentionally have a future where we’re banned from flying on airlines, prohibited from getting loans, or any number of other things.

Digital Identity On The Line

Imagine the following nightmare future scenarios where one’s digital identity is at the mercy of AI:

• What if your cell phone’s microphone “hears” you say something out of context, and then blacklists you as being antisocial or dangerous and bans you from using certain online services like digital banking?

• What if AI-controlled cameras see someone who looks very similar to you committing a crime, and then blacklists you from being able to shop in certain stores where your credit and debit cards are simply rejected outright, or security is notified to stop you the minute you walk in?

• What if as a youth, you make comments online or upload a video to social media well within your First Amendment rights and later on, a private company that controls the AI decides it doesn’t like those things, so it “downvotes” you as an adult when you try to apply for college and AI screens your application?

• What happens if a malicious person hacks the AI network and uprates or downrates people’s digital identity? Who do we appeal that with?

• And here’s one I know will get our elected officials’ attention: What happens if AI “prefers” one candidate over another and suppresses someone’s visibility online?

These are just a few of the possible horrors we could face if we don’t take steps now.

Hawaiʻi shouldn’t fear digital identities if we can have digital rights protected by robust regulations. We should lead the way, locally, by creating either a constitutional amendment or a set of digital fence laws that prohibit the use of social credit scores or mandate that residents be given the means to appeal any decision that a private or public AI makes regarding them.

At the federal level, our congressional delegation should propose a constitutional amendment which clarifies that the Fourth Amendment includes security in one’s digital identity.

The U.S. and Hawaiʻi should absolutely embrace AI as a useful tool for human progress, but we should be wary of AI that is not democratized and subject to strict regulation by the government.