OECD Policy Primer: “Immersive technologies, such as augmented reality, digital twins and virtual worlds, offer innovative ways to interact with information and the environment by engaging one’s senses. This paper explores potential benefits of these technologies, from innovative commercial applications to addressing societal challenges. It also highlights potential risks, such as extensive data collection, mental or physical risks from misuse, and emerging cyber threats. It outlines policy opportunities and challenges in maximising these benefits while mitigating risks, with real-world use cases in areas like remote healthcare and education for people with disabilities. The paper emphasises the critical role of anticipatory governance and international collaboration in shaping the human-centric and values-based development and use of immersive technologies…(More)”.
Large AI models are cultural and social technologies
Essay by Henry Farrell, Alison Gopnik, Cosma Shalizi, and James Evans: “Debates about artificial intelligence (AI) tend to revolve around whether large models are intelligent, autonomous agents. Some AI researchers and commentators speculate that we are on the cusp of creating agents with artificial general intelligence (AGI), a prospect anticipated with both elation and anxiety. There have also been extensive conversations about cultural and social consequences of large models, orbiting around two foci: immediate effects of these systems as they are currently used, and hypothetical futures when these systems turn into AGI agents perhaps even superintelligent AGI agents.
But this discourse about large models as intelligent agents is fundamentally misconceived. Combining ideas from social and behavioral sciences with computer science can help us understand AI systems more accurately. Large Models should not be viewed primarily as intelligent agents, but as a new kind of cultural and social technology, allowing humans to take advantage of information other humans have accumulated.
The new technology of large models combines important features of earlier technologies. Like pictures, writing, print, video, Internet search, and other such technologies, large models allow people to access information that other people have created. Large Models – currently language, vision, and multi-modal depend on the fact that the Internet has made the products of these earlier technologies readily available in machine-readable form. But like economic markets, state bureaucracies, and other social technologies, these systems not only make information widely available, they allow it to be reorganized, transformed, and restructured in distinctive ways. Adopting Herbert Simon’s terminology, large models are a new variant of the “artificial systems of human society” that process information to enable large-scale coordination…(More)”
Bridging Digital Divides: How PescaData is Connecting Small-Scale Fishing Cooperatives to the Blue Economy
Article by Stuart Fulton: “In this research project, we examine how digital platforms – specifically PescaData – can be leveraged to connect small-scale fishing cooperatives with impact investors and donors, creating new pathways for sustainable blue economy financing, while simultaneously ensuring fair data practices that respect data sovereignty and traditional ecological knowledge.
PescaData emerged as a pioneering digital platform that enables fishing communities to collect more accurate data to ensure sustainable fisheries. Since then, PescaData has evolved to provide software as a service to fishing cooperatives and to allow fishers to document their solutions to environmental and economic challenges. Since 2022, small-scale fishers have used it to document nearly 300 initiatives that contribute to multiple Sustainable Development Goals.
Respecting Data Sovereignty in the Digital Age
One critical aspect of our research acknowledges the unique challenges of implementing digital tools in traditional cooperative settings. Unlike conventional tech implementations that often extract value from communities, PescaData´s approach centers on data sovereignty – the principle that fishing communities should maintain ownership and control over their data. As the PescaData case study demonstrates, a humanity-centric rather than merely user-centric approach is essential. This means designing with compassion and establishing clear governance around data from the very beginning. The data generated by fishing cooperatives represents not just information, but traditional knowledge accumulated over generations of resource management.
The fishers themselves have articulated clear principles for data governance in a cooperative model:
- Ownership: Fishers, as data producers, decide who has access and under what conditions.
- Transparency: Clear agreements on data use.
- Knowledge assessment: Highlighting fishers’ contributions and placing them in decision-making positions.
- Co-design: Ensuring the platform meets their specific needs.
- Security: Protecting collected data…(More)”.
Can small language models revitalize Indigenous languages?
Article by Brooke Tanner and Cameron F. Kerry: “Indigenous languages play a critical role in preserving cultural identity and transmitting unique worldviews, traditions, and knowledge, but at least 40% of the world’s 6,700 languages are currently endangered. The United Nations declared 2022-2032 as the International Decade of Indigenous Languages to draw attention to this threat, in hopes of supporting the revitalization of these languages and preservation of access to linguistic resources.
Building on the advantages of SLMs, several initiatives have successfully adapted these models specifically for Indigenous languages. Such Indigenous language models (ILMs) represent a subset of SLMs that are designed, trained, and fine-tuned with input from the communities they serve.
Case studies and applications
- Meta released No Language Left Behind (NLLB-200), a 54 billion–parameter open-source machine translation model that supports 200 languages as part of Meta’s universal speech translator project. The model includes support for languages with limited translation resources. While the model’s breadth of languages included is novel, NLLB-200 can struggle to capture the intricacies of local context for low-resource languages and often relies on machine-translated sentence pairs across the internet due to the scarcity of digitized monolingual data.
- Lelapa AI’s InkubaLM-0.4B is an SLM with applications for low-resource African languages. Trained on 1.9 billion tokens across languages including isiZulu, Yoruba, Swahili, and isiXhosa, InkubaLM-0.4B (with 400 million parameters) builds on Meta’s LLaMA 2 architecture, providing a smaller model than the original LLaMA 2 pretrained model with 7 billion parameters.
- IBM Research Brazil and the University of São Paulo have collaborated on projects aimed at preserving Brazilian Indigenous languages such as Guarani Mbya and Nheengatu. These initiatives emphasize co-creation with Indigenous communities and address concerns about cultural exposure and language ownership. Initial efforts included electronic dictionaries, word prediction, and basic translation tools. Notably, when a prototype writing assistant for Guarani Mbya raised concerns about exposing their language and culture online, project leaders paused further development pending community consensus.
- Researchers have fine-tuned pre-trained models for Nheengatu using linguistic educational sources and translations of the Bible, with plans to incorporate community-guided spellcheck tools. Since the translations relying on data from the Bible, primarily translated by colonial priests, often sounded archaic and could reflect cultural abuse and violence, they were classified as potentially “toxic” data that would not be used in any deployed system without explicit Indigenous community agreement…(More)”.
Beyond Answers Presented by AI: Unlocking Innovation and Problem Solving Through A New Science of Questions
Paper by Stefaan Verhulst and Hannah Chafetz: “Today’s global crises–from climate change to inequality–have demonstrated the need for a broader conceptual transformation in how to approach societal issues. Focusing on the questions can transform our understanding of today’s problems and unlock new discoveries and innovations that make a meaningful difference. Yet, how decision-makers go about asking questions remains an underexplored topic.
Much of our recent work has focused on advancing a new science of questions that uses participatory approaches to define and prioritize the questions that matter most. As part of this work, we convened an Interdisciplinary Committee on Establishing and Democratizing the Science of Questions to discuss why questions matter for society and the actions needed to build a movement around this new science.
In this article, we provide the main findings from these gatherings. First we outline several roles that questions can play in shaping policy, research innovation. Supported by real-world examples, we discuss how questions are a critical device for setting agendas, increasing public participation, improving coordination, and more. We then provide five key challenges in developing a systematic approach to questions raised by the Committee and potential solutions to address those challenges. Existing challenges include weak recognition of questions, lack of skills and lack of consensus on what makes a good question.
In the latter part of this piece, we propose the concept of The QLab–a global center dedicated to the research and practice of asking questions. Co-developed with the Committee, the QLab would include five core functions: Thought Leadership, Architecting the Discovery of Questions, Field Building, Institutionalization and Practice, and Research on Questioning. By focusing on these core functions, The QLab can make significant progress towards establishing a field dedicated to the art and science of asking questions…(More)”.
A Quest for AI Knowledge
Paper by Joshua S. Gans: “This paper examines how the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI), particularly generative and large language models capable of interpolating precisely between known data points, reshapes scientists’ incentives for pursuing novel versus incremental research. Extending the theoretical framework of Carnehl and Schneider (2025), we analyse how decision-makers leverage AI to improve precision within well-defined knowledge domains. We identify conditions under which the availability of AI tools encourages scientists to choose more socially valuable, highly novel research projects, contrasting sharply with traditional patterns of incremental knowledge growth. Our model demonstrates a critical complementarity: scientists strategically align their research novelty choices to maximise the domain where AI can reliably inform decision-making. This dynamic fundamentally transforms the evolution of scientific knowledge, leading either to systematic “stepping stone” expansions or endogenous research cycles of strategic knowledge deepening. We discuss the broader implications for science policy, highlighting how sufficiently capable AI tools could mitigate traditional inefficiencies in scientific innovation, aligning private research incentives closely with the social optimum…(More)”.
Activated Citizenship: The Transformative Power of Citizens’ Assemblies
Book by Marjan H. Ehsassi: “To counter pervasive levels of citizen disengagement from political institutions, this book examines democratic innovations that meaningfully engage with citizens to address some of the deficits of Western representative democracies.
Citizens’ assemblies provide one such innovation, offering opportunities for more consistent participation between elections, more meaningful input in government decision making, and more impactful platforms for participation. This cutting-edge book introduces a new definition for an Activated Citizen, along with a methodology to measure civic and political engagement. Relying on a mixed-methods approach and field research conducted in Paris, Brussels, Ottawa, and Petaluma (California), as well as participant observations, over 180 surveys, 61 in-depth interviews and storytelling, the book provides case studies and in-depth analysis of hotbutton topics including climate change, unhoused populations, democratic expression, assisted suicide and euthanasia. Each chapter weaves quantitative results with rich qualitative testimonies from participants, government representatives, and observers. Based on empirical evidence, the book explores the ways in which government-led citizens’ assemblies can promote a more Activated Citizen. To fully realize the transformative potential of deliberative platforms, a final chapter offers a blueprint for impact, outlining concrete measures along with recommendations for the design and implementation of future government-initiated deliberative platforms…(More)”.
Being heard: Shaping digital futures for and with children
Blog by Laura Betancourt Basallo, Kim R. Sylwander and Sonia Livingstone: “One in three internet users is a child. Digital technologies are shaping children’s present and future, yet most digital spaces are designed by adults, for adults. Despite this disconnect, digital platforms have emerged as important spaces for children’s participation in political and cultural life, partly because this is often limited in traditional spaces.
Children’s access to and participation in the digital environment is not just desirable: the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child applies equally online and offline. Article 12 outlines children’s right to be heard in ways that genuinely influence the decisions affecting their lives. In 2021, the Committee on the Rights of the Child published its General comment No. 25, the authoritative framework on how children’s rights should be applied in relation to the digital environment—this emphasises the importance of children’s right to be heard, and to participation in the digital sphere.
Core elements for meaningful participation
Creating meaningful and rights-respecting opportunities for child and youth participation in research, policymaking, and product design demands strategic planning and practical actions. As scholar Laura Lundy explains, these opportunities should guarantee to children:
- SPACE: Children must be allowed to express their views.
- VOICE: Children must be facilitated to express their views.
- AUDIENCE: Their views must be listened to.
- INFLUENCE: Their views must be acted upon as appropriate.
This rights-based approach emphasises the importance of not just collecting children’s views but actively listening to them and ensuring that their input is meaningfully acted upon, while avoiding the pitfalls of tokenism, manipulation or unsafe practices. Implementing such engagement requires careful consideration of safeguards regarding privacy, freedom of thought, and inclusive access for children with limited digital skills or access.
Here we provide a curated list of resources to conduct consultations with children, using digital technologies and then about the digital environment. ..(More)”.
Climate Assemblies and the Law: A Research Roadmap
Article by Leslie Anne and Duvic Paoli: “The article is interested in the relationship between citizens’ assemblies on climate change (‘climate assemblies’) and the law. It offers a research roadmap on the legal dimensions of climate assemblies with the view to advancing our knowledge of deliberative climate governance. The article explores six fundamental areas of inquiry on which legal scholarship can offer relevant insights. They relate to: i) understanding the outcomes of climate assemblies; ii) clarifying their role in the public law relationship between individuals and government; iii) gaining insights into the making of climate legislation and other rules; iv) exploring the societal authority of norms; v) illustrating the transnational governance of climate change, including the diffusion of its norms and vi) offering a testing ground for the design of legal systems that are more ecologically and socially just. The aim is to nudge legal scholars into exploring the richness of the questions raised by the emergence of climate assemblies and, in turn, to encourage other social science scholars to reflect on how the legal perspective might contribute to better understanding their object of study…(More)”.
Can Real-Time Metrics Fill China’s Data Gap?
Case-study by Danielle Goldfarb: “After Chinese authorities abruptly reversed the country’s zero-COVID policy in 2022, global policymakers needed a clear and timely picture of the economic and health fallout.
China’s economy is the world’s second largest and the country has deep global links, so an accurate picture of its trajectory mattered for global health, growth and inflation. Getting a solid read was a challenge, however, since official health and economic data not only were not timely, but were widely viewed as unreliable.
There are now vast amounts and varied types of digital data available, from satellite images to social media text to online payments; these, along with advances in artificial intelligence (AI), make it possible to collect and analyze digital data in ways previously impossible.
Could these new tools help governments and global institutions refute or confirm China’s official picture and gather more timely intelligence?..(More)”.