Impact of AI and the digital dictatorship on cultural life in Myanmar Submission to the UN Expert Mechanism on the Right to Development – December 2025 Introduction Since the 2021 coup, the military has systematically weaponised digital technology and Artificial Intelligence (AI) as core components of its strategy to silence dissent and consolidate power. This digital coup has resulted in a significant collapse of civil and political rights, fundamentally altering the landscape for the right to development and cultural rights in Myanmar. The digital sphere is no longer a neutral space for development but a domain where fundamental rights are being systematically dismantled and denied. This submission to the UN Expert Mechanism on the Right to Development demonstrates that in the current context, AI does not serve as a tool for cultural or economic advancement. Instead, it has been integrated into a digital dictatorship designed to automate censorship, enforce a climate of fear, and erase those who oppose the military regime. Legal architecture enabling AI repression The deployment of automated surveillance technologies in Myanmar relies on a repressive legal framework designed to strip people of data privacy and legitimise state violence. Rather than regulating technology to protect human rights, these laws deregulate the State's use of surveillance while criminalising the civil society actors who might otherwise check these systems. • Organisation Registration Law (2022): By preventing the establishment of NGOs and criminalising unregistered NGOs, this law effectively bans independent rights groups. It eliminates the only mechanism capable of monitoring AI harms or demanding transparency, ensuring surveillance technologies are deployed without civil society oversight. • Counter-Terrorism Law (2014): Legitimises automated monitoring, tracking transactions to flag donors supporting the pro-democracy movement. Mobile money platforms like KBZPay and Wave Money reportedly hunt down donors. Article 52(a) converts these digital footprints into criminal evidence, arresting artists and activists for supporting or financing “terror” simply for conducting cultural resistance online.