Peace by Design? Unlocking the Potential of Seven Technologies for a More Peaceful Future

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Stefaan G. Verhulst and Artur Kluz: “Technology has always played a crucial role in human history, both in winning wars and building peace. Even Leonardo da Vinci, the genius of the Renaissance time, in his 1482 letter to Ludovico Il Moro Sforza, Duke of Milan promised to invent new technological warfare for attack or defense. While serving top military and political leaders, he was working on technological advancements that could potentially have a significant impact on geopolitics.

(Picture from @iwpg_la)

Today, we are living in exceptional times, where disruptive technologies such as AI, space-based technologies, quantum computing, and many others are leading to the reimagination of everything around us and transforming our lives, state interactions in the global arena, and wars. The next great industrial revolution may well be occurring over 250 miles above us in outer space and putting our world into a new perspective. This is not just a technological transformation; this is a social and human transformation.

Perhaps to a greater extent than ever since World War II, recent news has been dominated by talk of war, as well as the destructive power of AI for human existence. The headlines are of missiles and offensives in Ukraine, of possible — and catastrophic — conflict over Taiwan, and of AI as humanity’s biggest existential threat.

A critical difference between this era and earlier times of conflict is the potential role of technology for peace. Along with traditional weaponry and armaments, it is clear that new space, data, and various other information and communication technologies will play an increasingly prominent role in 21st-century conflicts, especially when combined.

Much of the discussion today focuses on the potential offensive capabilities of technology. In a recent report titled “Seven Critical Technologies for Winning the Next War”, CSIS highlighted that “the next war will be fought on a high-tech battlefield….The consequences of failure on any of these technologies are tremendous — they could make the difference between victory and defeat.”

However, in the following discussion, we shift our focus to a distinctly different aspect of technology — its potential to cultivate peace and prevent conflicts. We present seven forms of PeaceTech, which encompass technologies that can actively avert or alleviate conflicts. These technologies are part of a broader range of innovations that contribute to the greater good of society and foster the overall well-being of humanity.

The application of frontier technologies has speedy, broad, and impactful effects in building peace. From preventing military conflicts and disinformation, connecting people, facilitating dialogue, drone delivery of humanitarian aid, and solving water access conflicts, to satellite imagery to monitor human rights violations and monitor peacekeeping efforts; technology has demonstrated its strong footprint in building peace.

One important caveat is in order: readers may note the absence of data in the list below. We have chosen to include data as a cross-cutting category that applies across the seven technologies. This points to the ubiquity of data in today’s digital ecology. In an era of rapid datafication, data can no longer be classified as a single technology, but rather as an asset or tool embedded within virtually every other technology. (See our writings on the role of data for peace here)…(More)”.

The Rapid Growth of Behavioral Science

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Steve Wendel: “It’s hard to miss the rapid growth of our field: into new sectors, into new countries, and into new collaborations with other fields. Over the years, I’ve sought to better understand that growth by collecting data about our field and sharing the results. A few weeks ago, I launched the most recent effort – a survey for behavioral science & behavioral design practitioners and one for behavioral researchers around the globe. Here, I’ll share a bit about what we’re seeing so far in the data, and ask for your help to spread it more widely.

First, our field has seen rapid growth since 2008 – which is, naturally, when Thaler and Sunstein’s Nudge first came out. The number of teams and practitioners in the space has grown more or less in tandem, though with a recent slowing in the creation of new teams since 2020. The most productive year was 2019, with 59 new teams starting; the subsequent three years have averaged 28 per year[1].

Behavioral science and design practitioners are also increasingly spread around the world. Just a few years ago, it was difficult to find practitioners outside of BeSci centers in the US, UK, and a few other countries. While we are still heavily concentrated in these areas, there are now active practitioners in 72 countries: from Paraguay to Senegal to Bhutan.

Figure 1: Where practitioners are located. Note – the live and interactive map is available on BehavioralTeams.com.

The majority of practitioners (52%) are in full-time behavioral science or behavioral design roles. The rest are working in other disciplines such as product design and marketing in which they aren’t dedicated to BeSci but have the opportunity to apply it in their work (38%). A minority of individuals have BeSci side jobs (9%).

Among respondents thus far, the most common challenge they are facing is making the case for behavioral science with senior leaders in their organizations (63%) and being able to measure the impact of their inventions (65%). Anecdotally, many practitioners in the field complain that they are asked for their recommendations on what to do, but aren’t given the opportunity to follow up and see if those recommendations were implemented or, when implemented, were actually effective.

The survey asks many more questions about the experiences and backgrounds of practitioners, but we’re still gathering data and will release new results when we have them…(More)”.

Doing more good: three trends tech companies should consider in supporting humanitarian response

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Jessie End: “On 6 February 2023, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Turkey and Syria, leaving at least 56,000 dead and more than 20 million impacted. Since April, renewed conflict in Sudan has left hundreds of thousands displaced. Ukraine. COVID. Contemplating an increasingly complex and besieged humanitarian landscape, I asked our partners: how can the technology sector better meet these growing needs?

To mark World Humanitarian Day last month, here are three trends with which tech companies can align to ensure our work is doing the most good…

Climate change has been in the public narrative for decades. For much of that time it was the territory of environmental nonprofits. Today, it is recognised as an intersectional issue impacting the work of every humanitarian organisation. The effects of climate change on food security, livelihoods, migration and conflict requires organisations such as Mercy Corps and the International Committee of the Red Cross to incorporate mitigation, resilience and climate-savvy response across their programs.

Early warning systems (EWS) are a promising development in this area, and one well-aligned with the expertise of the tech sector. An effective climate early warning system addresses the complex network of factors contributing to and resulting from climate change. It provides event detection, analysis, prediction, communication and decision-making tools. An effective EWS includes the communities and sectors most at risk, incorporating all relevant risk factors, from geography to social vulnerabilities.

There are many ways for tech firms to engage with this work. Companies working on remote sensing technologies improve risk detection, as well as provide predictive modeling. Dataminr’s own AI platform detects the earliest signals of high-impact events and emerging risks from within publicly available data, including environmental sensors. Market insight platforms can lend their strengths to participatory mapping and data collection for climate risk analysis. And two-way, geolocated messaging can help with targeted dissemination of warnings to impacted communities, as well as with coordinating response efforts.

The key to success is integration. No single tech company can address all parts of a robust EWS, but working together and with partners like MIT’s CREWSnet we can build seamless systems that help humanitarian partners protect the lives and livelihoods of the world’s most vulnerable…(More)”.

Navigating the Jagged Technological Frontier: Field Experimental Evidence of the Effects of AI on Knowledge Worker Productivity and Quality

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Fabrizio Dell’Acqua et al: “The public release of Large Language Models (LLMs) has sparked tremendous interest in how humans will use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to accomplish a variety of tasks. In our study conducted with Boston Consulting Group, a global management consulting firm, we examine the performance implications of AI on realistic, complex, and knowledge-intensive tasks. The pre-registered experiment involved 758 consultants comprising about 7% of the individual contributor-level consultants at the company. After establishing a performance baseline on a similar task, subjects were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: no AI access, GPT-4 AI access, or GPT-4 AI access with a prompt engineering overview. We suggest that the capabilities of AI create a “jagged technological frontier” where some tasks are easily done by AI, while others, though seemingly similar in difficulty level, are outside the current capability of AI. For each one of a set of 18 realistic consulting tasks within the frontier of AI capabilities, consultants using AI were significantly more productive (they completed 12.2% more tasks on average, and completed task 25.1% more quickly), and produced significantly higher quality results (more than 40% higher quality compared to a control group). Consultants across the skills distribution benefited significantly from having AI augmentation, with those below the average performance threshold increasing by 43% and those above increasing by 17% compared to their own scores. For a task selected to be outside the frontier, however, consultants using AI were 19 percentage points less likely to produce correct solutions compared to those without AI. Further, our analysis shows the emergence of two distinctive patterns of successful AI use by humans along a spectrum of human-AI integration. One set of consultants acted as “Centaurs,” like the mythical halfhorse/half-human creature, dividing and delegating their solution-creation activities to the AI or to themselves. Another set of consultants acted more like “Cyborgs,” completely integrating their task flow with the AI and continually interacting with the technology…(More)”.

Citizens call for sufficiency and regulation — A comparison of European citizen assemblies and National Energy and Climate Plans

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Jonas Lage et al: “There is a growing body of scientific evidence supporting sufficiency as an inevitable strategy for mitigating climate change. Despite this, sufficiency plays a minor role in existing climate and energy policies. Following previous work on the National Energy and Climate Plans of EU countries, we conduct a similar content analysis of the recommendations made by citizen assemblies on climate change mitigation in ten European countries and the EU, and compare the results of these studies. Citizen assemblies are representative mini-publics and enjoy a high level of legitimacy.

We identify a total of 860 mitigation policy recommendations in the citizen assemblies’ documents, of which 332 (39 %) include sufficiency. Most of the sufficiency policies relate to the mobility sector, the least relate to the buildings sector. Regulatory instruments are the most often proposed means for achieving sufficiency, followed by fiscal and economic instruments. The average approval rate of sufficiency policies is high (93 %), with the highest rates for regulatory policies.

Compared to National Energy and Climate Plans, the citizen assembly recommendations include a significantly higher share of sufficiency policies (factor three to six) with a stronger focus on regulatory policies. Consequently, the recommendations can be interpreted as a call for a sufficiency turn and a regulatory turn in climate mitigation politics. These results suggest that the observed lack of sufficiency in climate policy making is not due to a lack of legitimacy, but rather reflects a reluctance to implement sufficiency policies, the constitution of the policy making process and competing interests…(More)”.

Spectrum Auctions: Designing markets to benefit the public, industry and the economy

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Geoffrey Myers: “Access to the radio spectrum is vital for modern digital communication. It is an essential component for smartphone capabilities, the Cloud, the Internet of Things, autonomous vehicles, and multiple other new technologies. Governments use spectrum auctions to decide which companies should use what parts of the radio spectrum. Successful auctions can fuel rapid innovation in products and services, unlock substantial economic benefits, build comparative advantage across all regions, and create billions of dollars of government revenues. Poor auction strategies can leave bandwidth unsold and delay innovation, sell national assets to firms too cheaply, or create uncompetitive markets with high mobile prices and patchy coverage that stifles economic growth. Corporate bidders regularly complain that auctions raise their costs, while government critics argue that insufficient revenues are raised. The cross-national record shows many examples of both highly successful auctions and miserable failures.

Drawing on experience from the UK and other countries, senior regulator Geoffrey Myers explains how to optimise the regulatory design of auctions, from initial planning to final implementation. Spectrum Auctions offers unrivalled expertise for regulators and economists engaged in practical auction design or company executives planning bidding strategies. For applied economists, teachers, and advanced students this book provides unrivalled insights in market design and public management. Providing clear analytical frameworks, case studies of auctions, and stage-by-stage advice, it is essential reading for anyone interested in designing public-interested and successful spectrum auctions…(More)”.

EU Parliament pushes for more participatory tools for Europeans

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Silvia Ellena: “A majority of EU lawmakers adopted a report on Thursday (14 September) calling for more participatory tools at EU level. The report, which has no direct legislative impact, passed with 316 votes in favour, 137 against and 47 abstentions.

“We send a clear message to upgrade our democracy, a new EU Agora that involves citizens in European democratic life,” said Alin Mituța (Renew), co-rapporteur on the file, following the adoption of the report.

In the report, the Parliament called for the creation of a European Agora, an annual “structured participation mechanism” composed of citizens, who would deliberate on the EU’s priorities for the year ahead, providing input for the Commission work plan.

Moreover, EU lawmakers called for the creation of a one-stop-shop for all the existing instruments to make sure citizens have easier access to them.

The report also encourages increased use of mini-publics as well as the institutionalisation of other deliberative processes, such as the European Citizens’ Panels, which were set up by the Commission as a follow-up to the EU-wide democratic experiment known as the Conference on the Future of Europe (CoFoE).

These panels, made of randomly selected citizens, were called to deliberate on upcoming legislation earlier this year.

Other participatory tools suggested in the report include EU-wide referendums on key EU policies as well as pan-European online citizens’ consultations to increase citizens’ knowledge of the EU as well as their trust in EU decision-making.

Finally, the Parliament called for an increased focus on the impact of EU policies on youth, suggesting the use of the ‘youth check’, a monitoring tool which has been promoted by the European Youth Forum and included in the CoFoE recommendations.

Other European institutions are already experimenting with the youth check, such as the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), whose recently appointed president included a youth test among the priorities for his mandate…

According to EU lawmakers, citizens’ participation plays a key role in strengthening democracy and the EU Commission should develop a “comprehensive European strategy to enhance citizenship competences in the EU”…(More)”.

Enhancing the security of communication infrastructure

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

OECD Report: “The digital security of communication networks is crucial to the functioning of our societies. Four trends are shaping networks, raising digital security implications: i) the increasing criticality of communication networks, ii) increased virtualisation of networks and use of cloud services, iii) a shift towards more openness in networks and iv) the role of artificial intelligence in networks. These trends bring benefits and challenges to digital security. While digital security ultimately depends on the decisions made by private actors (e.g. network operators and their suppliers), the report underlines the role governments can play to enhance the digital security of communication networks. It outlines key policy objectives and actions governments can take to incentivise the adoption of best practices and support stakeholders to reach an optimal level of digital security, ranging from light-touch to more interventionist approaches…(More)”.

Unlocking AI’s Potential for Everyone

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Diane Coyle: “…But while some policymakers do have deep knowledge about AI, their expertise tends to be narrow, and most other decision-makers simply do not understand the issue well enough to craft sensible policies. Owing to this relatively low knowledge base and the inevitable asymmetry of information between regulators and regulated, policy responses to specific issues are likely to remain inadequate, heavily influenced by lobbying, or highly contested.

So, what is to be done? Perhaps the best option is to pursue more of a principles-based policy. This approach has already gained momentum in the context of issues like misinformation and trolling, where many experts and advocates believe that Big Tech companies should have a general duty of care (meaning a default orientation toward caution and harm reduction).

In some countries, similar principles already apply to news broadcasters, who are obligated to pursue accuracy and maintain impartiality. Although enforcement in these domains can be challenging, the upshot is that we do already have a legal basis for eliciting less socially damaging behavior from technology providers.

When it comes to competition and market dominance, telecoms regulation offers a serviceable model with its principle of interoperability. People with competing service providers can still call each other because telecom companies are all required to adhere to common technical standards and reciprocity agreements. The same is true of ATMs: you may incur a fee, but you can still withdraw cash from a machine at any bank.

In the case of digital platforms, a lack of interoperability has generally been established by design, as a means of locking in users and creating “moats.” This is why policy discussions about improving data access and ensuring access to predictable APIs have failed to make any progress. But there is no technical reason why some interoperability could not be engineered back in. After all, Big Tech companies do not seem to have much trouble integrating the new services that they acquire when they take over competitors.

In the case of LLMs, interoperability probably could not apply at the level of the models themselves, since not even their creators understand their inner workings. However, it can and should apply to interactions between LLMs and other services, such as cloud platforms…(More)”.

Unleashing the metaverse for skills and workforce development

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Gemma Rodon, Marjorie Chinen, and Diego Angel-Urdinola: “The metaverse is revolutionizing skills and workforce development, reshaping learning in fields like auto-mechanics, health care, welding and various vocations. It offers future workers with invaluable, cost-effective, flexible, standardized and safe apprenticeship opportunities tailored for the demands of the global economy….Given its importance and potential, the World Bank’s EdTech team, with support from a Digital Development Partnership Grant, has recently completed a knowledge pack (KP) that provides evidence and case studies showcasing the advantages and results of using the metaverse, notably virtual and extended reality (XR) labs, for workforce development and offers guidance on implementation and steps necessary to deploy this technology. XR is an umbrella term that encompasses all immersive technologies that blend physical and digital worlds, including virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and mixed reality (MR).

The KP compiles a catalog of available virtual and XR labs in the market in high-demand sectors, such as auto-mechanics, nursing, and welding. Overall, the metaverse is reshaping workforce development in three key aspects:

  • Reducing risks and fostering safety: Some training situations and learning experiences may be dangerous or difficult to access (e.g., health care, welding training, emergency preparedness, mass disasters, etc.).
  • Promoting technical proficiency: The metaverse allows for unlimited practice opportunities and can personalize the pace (and scenarios) of the learning experiences in a simulated environment.

Enhancing efficiency and monitoring: Training in the metaverse requires less investment in inputs and consumables; allows for easier adjustments to changes in the industry and facilitates data collection and analysis on students’ use and performance…(More)”.