Chilling effects on cultural assembly The military’s deployment of the Person Scrutinisation and Monitoring System (PSMS) represents a profound threat to the entire cultural ecosystem of Myanmar. By integrating AI-enhanced facial recognition with cross-referencing capabilities (linking hotel guest lists, transport logs, and CCTV footage), the State has created a panopticon that extends far. This system effectively abolishes the concept of a safe public space necessary for cultural assembly. Whether it is a literary festival, a traditional performance, or a private gathering of artists, the knowledge that an automated system can instantly identify and profile every attendee creates a paralysing, chilling effect. Participation in cultural life becomes a high-risk activity, forcing artistic and cultural expression underground and dismantling the communal bonds that underpin Myanmar’s diverse heritage. Disproportionate impacts on vulnerable groups These digital risks are not distributed equally. They disproportionately target the most vulnerable, particularly women and ethnic minorities, amplifying pre-existing cultural inequalities and intersecting forms of discrimination. For women, AI technologies have enabled a new, terrifying form of gender-based violence known as the “dox-to-arrest pipeline”. Pro-military social media users, using AI-enhanced facial recognition on protest images, systematically identify women. Once identified, their personal details are published online (doxing) with explicit calls for their arrest or sexual assault. Furthermore, the rise of AIgenerated deepfake pornography is being used to humiliate and silence women, effectively driving them out of the digital public square and stripping them of their right to participate in public life without fear of violence. Ethnic and religious minorities, including the Rohingya, continue to face the lethal consequences of algorithmic negligence. Despite repeated warnings, social media platforms have failed to exercise human rights due diligence regarding the training of their content moderation AI. This blind spot allows hatred and incitement to violence to spread unchecked within these communities. The algorithm’s failures mean that calls for harm can be amplified as engaging content, while counterspeech from these same minorities is suppressed or ignored, violating their rights to security of person and non-discrimination. Black box of cultural influence The most profound long-term threat to cultural rights is the loss of cultural self-determination due to the opacity of AI systems. Myanmar faces a future where the public square is curated entirely by black box algorithms whose operations are invisible to the public. Because the code is secret, people cannot know why they see what they see, or conversely, why certain cultural movements remain hidden. This lack of transparency poses a risk of algorithmic colonialism. If the algorithms shaping Myanmar’s digital culture are optimised for engagement metrics defined by foreign corporations, or compliant with the censorship demands of the military regime, then the culture itself is being externally engineered. Small, invisible tweaks to a recommendation algorithm can silence an entire artistic