Report by Joseph Siegle: “Democracies are engaged in an ideological competition with autocracies that could reshape the global order. Narratives are a potent, asymmetric instrument of power, as they reframe events in a way that conforms to and propagates a particular worldview. Over the past decade and a half, autocracies like Russia and China have led the effort to disseminate authoritarian narratives globally, seeking to normalize authoritarianism as an equally viable and legitimate form of government. How do authoritarian narratives reframe an unappealing value proposition, with the aim of making the democratic path seem less attractive and offering authoritarianism as an alternative model? How can democracies reemphasize their core principles and remind audiences of democracy’s moral, developmental, and security advantages?…(More)”.
In the long run: the future as a political idea
Book by Jonathan White: “Democracy is future-oriented and self-correcting: today’s problems can be solved, we are told, in tomorrow’s elections. But the biggest issues facing the modern world – from climate collapse and pandemics to recession and world war – each apparently bring us to the edge of the irreversible. What happens to democracy when the future seems no longer open?
In this eye-opening history of ideas, Jonathan White investigates how politics has long been directed by shifting visions of the future, from the birth of ideologies in the nineteenth century to Cold War secrecy and the excesses of the neoliberal age.
As an inescapable sense of disaster defines our politics, White argues that a political commitment to the long-term may be the best way to safeguard democracy. Wide in scope and sharply observed, In the Long Run is a history of the future that urges us to make tomorrow new again…(More)”.
Can the Internet be Governed?
Article by Akash Kapur: “…During the past decade or so, however, governments around the world have grown impatient with the notion of Internet autarky. A trickle of halfhearted interventions has built into what the legal scholar Anu Bradford calls a “cascade of regulation.” In “Digital Empires” (Oxford), her comprehensive and insightful book on global Internet policy, she describes a series of skirmishes—between regulators and companies, and among regulators themselves—whose outcomes will “shape the future ethos of the digital society and define the soul of the digital economy.”
Other recent books echo this sense of the network as being at a critical juncture. Tom Wheeler, a former chairman of the F.C.C., argues in “Techlash: Who Makes the Rules in the Digital Gilded Age?” (Brookings) that we are at “a legacy moment for this generation to determine whether, and how, it will assert the public interest in the new digital environment.” In “The Internet Con” (Verso), Doctorow makes a passionate case for “relief from manipulation, high-handed moderation, surveillance, price-gouging, disgusting or misleading algorithmic suggestions”; he argues that it is time to “dismantle Big Tech’s control over our digital lives and devolve control to the people.” In “Read Write Own” (Random House), Chris Dixon, a venture capitalist, says that a network dominated by a handful of private interests “is neither the internet I want to see nor the world I wish to live in.” He writes, “Think about how much of your life you live online, how much of your identity resides there. . . . Whom do you want in control of that world?”…(More)”.
Don’t Talk to People Like They’re Chatbots
Article by Albert Fox Cahn and Bruce Schneier: “For most of history, communicating with a computer has not been like communicating with a person. In their earliest years, computers required carefully constructed instructions, delivered through punch cards; then came a command-line interface, followed by menus and options and text boxes. If you wanted results, you needed to learn the computer’s language.
This is beginning to change. Large language models—the technology undergirding modern chatbots—allow users to interact with computers through natural conversation, an innovation that introduces some baggage from human-to-human exchanges. Early on in our respective explorations of ChatGPT, the two of us found ourselves typing a word that we’d never said to a computer before: “Please.” The syntax of civility has crept into nearly every aspect of our encounters; we speak to this algebraic assemblage as if it were a person—even when we know that it’s not.
Right now, this sort of interaction is a novelty. But as chatbots become a ubiquitous element of modern life and permeate many of our human-computer interactions, they have the potential to subtly reshape how we think about both computers and our fellow human beings.
One direction that these chatbots may lead us in is toward a society where we ascribe humanity to AI systems, whether abstract chatbots or more physical robots. Just as we are biologically primed to see faces in objects, we imagine intelligence in anything that can hold a conversation. (This isn’t new: People projected intelligence and empathy onto the very primitive 1960s chatbot, Eliza.) We say “please” to LLMs because it feels wrong not to…(More)”.
Collective action for responsible AI in health
OECD Report: “Artificial intelligence (AI) will have profound impacts across health systems, transforming health care, public health, and research. Responsible AI can accelerate efforts toward health systems being more resilient, sustainable, equitable, and person-centred. This paper provides an overview of the background and current state of artificial intelligence in health, perspectives on opportunities, risks, and barriers to success. The paper proposes several areas to be explored for policy-makers to advance the future of responsible AI in health that is adaptable to change, respects individuals, champions equity, and achieves better health outcomes for all.
The areas to be explored relate to trust, capacity building, evaluation, and collaboration. This recognises that the primary forces that are needed to unlock the value from artificial intelligence are people-based and not technical…(More)”
When Farmland Becomes the Front Line, Satellite Data and Analysis Can Fight Hunger
Article by Inbal Becker-Reshef and Mary Mitkish: “When a shock to the global food system occurs—such as during the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022—collecting the usual ground-based data is all but impossible. The Russia–Ukraine war has turned farmland into the front lines of a war zone. In this situation, it is unreasonable to expect civilians to walk onto fields riddled with land mines and damaged by craters to collect information on what has been planted, where it was planted, and if it could be harvested. The inherent danger of ground-based data collection, especially in occupied territories of the conflict, has demanded a different way to assess planted and harvested areas and forecast crop production.
Satellite-based information can provide this evidence quickly and reliably. At NASA Harvest, NASA’s Global Food Security and Agriculture Consortium, one of our main aims is to use satellite-based information to fill gaps in the agriculture information ecosystem. Since the start of the Russia–Ukraine conflict, we have been using satellite imagery to estimate the impact of the war on Ukraine’s agricultural lands at the request of the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine. Our work demonstrates how effective this approach can be for delivering critical and timely insights for decisionmakers.
Prior to the war, Ukraine accounted for over 10% of the world’s wheat, corn, and barley trade and was the number one sunflower oil exporter, accounting for close to 50% of the global market. In other words, food produced in Ukraine is critical for its national economy, for global trade, and for feeding millions across the globe…(More)”.
Regulating AI Deepfakes and Synthetic Media in the Political Arena
Report by Daniel Weiner and Lawrence Norden: “…Part I of this resource defines the terms deepfake, synthetic media, and manipulated media in more detail. Part II sets forth some necessary considerations for policymakers, specifically:
- The most plausible rationales for regulating deepfakes and other manipulated media when used in the political arena. In general, the necessity of promoting an informed electorate and the need to safeguard the overall integrity of the electoral process are among the most compelling rationales for regulating manipulated media in the political space.
- The types of communications that should be regulated. Regulations should reach synthetic images and audio as well as video. Policymakers should focus on curbing or otherwise limiting depictions of events or statements that did not actually occur, especially those appearing in paid campaign ads and certain other categories of paid advertising or otherwise widely disseminated communications. All new rules should have clear carve-outs for parody, news media stories, and potentially other types of protected speech.
- How such media should be regulated. Transparency rules — for example, rules requiring a manipulated image or audio recording to be clearly labeled as artificial and not a portrayal of real events — will usually be easiest to defend in court. Transparency will not always be enough, however; lawmakers should also consider outright bans of certain categories of manipulated media, such as deceptive audio and visual material seeking to mislead people about the time, place, and manner of voting.
- Who regulations should target. Both bans and less burdensome transparency requirements should primarily target those who create or disseminate deceptive media, although regulation of the platforms used to transmit deepfakes may also make sense…(More)”.
2023 OECD Digital Government Index
OECD Report: “Digital government is essential to transform government processes and services in ways that improve the responsiveness and reliability of the public sector. During the COVID-19 pandemic it also proved crucial to governments’ ability to continue operating in times of crisis and provide timely services to citizens and businesses. Yet, for the digital transformation to be sustainable in the long term, it needs solid foundations, including adaptable governance arrangements, reliable and resilient digital public infrastructure, and a prospective approach to governing with emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence. This paper presents the main findings of the 2023 edition of the OECD Digital Government Index (DGI), which benchmarks the efforts made by governments to establish the foundations necessary for a coherent, human-centred digital transformation of the public sector. It comprises 155 data points from 33 member countries, 4 accession countries and 1 partner country collected in 2022, covering the period between 01 January 2020 and 31 October 2022…(More)”
Can GovTech really rebuild trust through public innovation?
Article by the World Economic Forum: “Entrepreneurial civil servants, creative bureaucracies, agile stability, digital state.
These terms sound like oxymorons, yet they are foundational to tackling the world’s complex societal challenges. And these ideas are already becoming a reality in some parts of the world. Introducing what will become one of the biggest software markets in the world: government technology or GovTech.
GovTech is about applying digitization and emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), advanced sensing, blockchain, advanced data processing etc., to improve the delivery of public services by increasing efficiency, lowering costs and creating entirely new public value.
The sector is estimated to be worth over $1 trillion by 2028 and is critical to making public services more efficient, effective and accessible for citizens. It will be the key to the government’s ability to deliver outcomes and build and sustain trust in a context of increasing contestation and rising expectations from digitally native citizens…(More)”.
10 Examples of Successful African e-Government Digital Services
Article by Wayan Vota: “African countries are implementing a diverse range of e-Government services, aiming to improve service delivery, enhance efficiency, and promote transparency. For example, common e-Government services in African countries include:
- Online Government Portals: African countries are increasingly offering online services such as e-taxation, e-payment, and e-billing through online government portals, which allow citizens to access public services more efficiently and provide governments with prompt feedback on service quality.
- Digital Identity Initiatives: Many African countries are working on digital identity initiatives to improve service delivery, including the introduction of national IDs with biometric data components to generate documents and provide services automatically, reducing paperwork and enhancing efficiency.
- G2G, G2B, and G2C Activities: e-Government services to different groups, like Government-to-Government (G2G), Government-to-Business (G2B), and Government-to-Citizen (G2C) focuses on activities such as electoral processes, staff payroll payments, healthcare management systems, support for small businesses, and transparent procurement procedures…
Successful eGovernment initiatives in African countries have significantly improved government services and citizen engagement. These examples are part of a broader trend in Africa towards leveraging digital technologies to improve governance and public administration, with many countries making significant implementation progress…(More)”.