How to Use Tech to Outsmart Dictators | Leopoldo López | TED

Four months ago, Venezuelan regime agents raided my house, destroying property and killing my dogs. They then revoked my Venezuelan nationality, despite it being constitutionally prohibited. This was in retaliation for my public support of law enforcement and military action against Nicolás Maduro, which led to his capture. My family and I have endured a long period of persecution, including assassination attempts and my eventual seven-year imprisonment as a political prisoner. During solitary confinement, the constant sound of nine locks became a metaphor for my lost freedoms: speech, mobility, a fair trial, property, and identity. I began to see locks as the problem and keys as the solution. I developed a communication protocol with other prisoners during mass by asking them to contact my wife, eventually leading to us taking control of the prison for 12 hours. After this, I endured a 28-day hunger strike, losing everything, including my books. In this extreme loneliness, I realized my heart and soul, my feelings and thoughts, were the only things they couldn't take—a key to internal freedom. I escaped Venezuela in late 2020, entering exile and a world transformed by technology. A friend at Stanford introduced me to Bitcoin and AI, highlighting their potential for freedom through decentralization and open-source nature. This sparked my interest in the intersection of technology and freedom. I met other political prisoners and exiles, and together we founded the World Liberty Congress, a global alliance of freedom fighters from 60 countries. Through the Congress, I learned how technology empowers people. For example, we used stablecoins and Bitcoin to provide $100 monthly support to over 70,000 Venezuelan medical professionals, bypassing the surveilled financial system. Journalist Anyan uses Nostr, an open-source protocol, to secure his network's information from deletion. In Uganda, my friend Bobi Wine used BitChat, an open-source protocol that connects phones via Bluetooth mesh networks without internet, allowing 1.8 million people to communicate during an election where the internet was shut down. However, Uganda also showed that while technology like Starlink can be a source of freedom, gatekeepers can block it. The problem isn't the technology, but who holds the keys. This applies to AI as well: who controls your information? Sovereign AI, which you can manage on your own machine, offers a solution. Mastering these keys is challenging. In prison, facing constant threats, I learned to control my fear by physically regulating my heart rate. This internal key to self-control and freedom is analogous to the digital keys we must master for sovereignty in the 21st century. My purpose, and the purpose of the World Liberty Congress, is the freedom of Venezuela and all countries under autocratic regimes. Technology can be a source of freedom if everyone finds their own keys to identity and freedom.