Ian Bremmer: The death of the internet as a democratizing force a harbinger of the death of democracy

Technology was supposed to scatter power. Early internet visionaries hoped that the digital revolution would empower individuals to break free from ignorance, poverty and tyranny. And, for a while at least, it did. But today, ever-smarter algorithms are learning to predict — and shape — our every choice, enabling unprecedentedly effective forms of centralized, unaccountable surveillance and control. The coming AI revolution may even render closed political systems more stable than open ones — where transparency, pluralism, checks and balances, and other key democratic features could prove liabilities in an age of exponential change. If openness long gave democracies their edge, could it be their undoing tomorrow?

Two decades ago I sketched the “J-curve,” which links a country’s openness t