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)”.

Supporting decision making with strategic foresight

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

OECD working paper: “… discusses strategic foresight initiatives and methodologies that support decision making and process design. It highlights case studies, international benchmarks, and best practices, as well as methodological recommendations and options for promoting the adoption and use of strategic foresight in government. The paper has four sections, each centred on a critical action to improve decision making through strategic foresight: (i) framing strategic foresight, (ii) building its fundamental components in governments, (iii) fine-tuning foresight interventions to specific contexts, and (iv) undertaking concrete activities to solve specific policy challenges. Given its exploratory nature, this working paper and its proposals should be seen as contributing to ongoing debates about the use of strategic foresight for decision making in government. The ultimate purpose of this paper is to help governments become more proactive and prospective…(More)”.

Centers of Progress: 40 Cities That Changed the World

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Chelsea Follett: “Where does progress happen? The story of civilization is the story of the city. It is cities that have created and defined the modern world by acting as the sites of pivotal advances in culture, politics, science, technology, and more. There is no question that certain places, at certain times in history, have contributed disproportionately toward making the world a better place. This book tells the story of forty of those places.

In Centers of Progress: 40 Cities That Changed the World, Chelsea Follett examines a diverse group of cities, ranging from ancient Athens to Song‐​era Hangzhou. But some common themes stand out: most cities reach their creative peak during periods of peace; most centers of progress also thrive during times of social, intellectual, and economic freedom, as well as openness to intercultural exchange and trade; and centers of progress tend to be highly populated. Because, in every city, it is ultimately the people who live there who drive progress forward―if given the freedom to do so.

Identifying common factors―such as relative peace, freedom, and multitudes―among the places that have produced history’s greatest achievements is one way to learn what causes progress. Change is a constant, but progress is not. Understanding what makes a place fertile ground for progress may help to sow the seeds of future innovations.

Moreover, their story is our story. City air provides the wind in the sails of the modern world. Come journey through these pages to some of history’s greatest centers of progress…(More)”.

Artificial intelligence in local governments: perceptions of city managers on prospects, constraints and choices

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Tan Yigitcanlar, Duzgun Agdas & Kenan Degirmenci: “Highly sophisticated capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) have skyrocketed its popularity across many industry sectors globally. The public sector is one of these. Many cities around the world are trying to position themselves as leaders of urban innovation through the development and deployment of AI systems. Likewise, increasing numbers of local government agencies are attempting to utilise AI technologies in their operations to deliver policy and generate efficiencies in highly uncertain and complex urban environments. While the popularity of AI is on the rise in urban policy circles, there is limited understanding and lack of empirical studies on the city manager perceptions concerning urban AI systems. Bridging this gap is the rationale of this study. The methodological approach adopted in this study is twofold. First, the study collects data through semi-structured interviews with city managers from Australia and the US. Then, the study analyses the data using the summative content analysis technique with two data analysis software. The analysis identifies the following themes and generates insights into local government services: AI adoption areas, cautionary areas, challenges, effects, impacts, knowledge basis, plans, preparedness, roadblocks, technologies, deployment timeframes, and usefulness. The study findings inform city managers in their efforts to deploy AI in their local government operations, and offer directions for prospective research…(More)”.

AI and the next great tech shift

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book review by John Thornhill: “When the South Korean political activist Kim Dae-jung was jailed for two years in the early 1980s, he powered his way through some 600 books in his prison cell, such was his thirst for knowledge. One book that left a lasting impression was The Third Wave by the renowned futurist Alvin Toffler, who argued that an imminent information revolution was about to transform the world as profoundly as the preceding agricultural and industrial revolutions.

“Yes, this is it!” Kim reportedly exclaimed. When later elected president, Kim referred to the book many times in his drive to turn South Korea into a technological powerhouse.

Forty-three years after the publication of Toffler’s book, another work of sweeping futurism has appeared with a similar theme and a similar name. Although the stock in trade of futurologists is to highlight the transformational and the unprecedented, it is remarkable how much of their output appears the same.

The chief difference is that The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman focuses more narrowly on the twin revolutions of artificial intelligence and synthetic biology. But the author would surely be delighted if his book were to prove as influential as Toffler’s in prompting politicians to action.

As one of the three co-founders of DeepMind, the London-based AI research company founded in 2010, and now chief executive of the AI start-up Inflection, Suleyman has been at the forefront of the industry for more than a decade. The Coming Wave bristles with breathtaking excitement about the extraordinary possibilities that the revolutions in AI and synthetic biology could bring about.

AI, we are told, could unlock the secrets of the universe, cure diseases and stretch the bounds of imagination. Biotechnology can enable us to engineer life and transform agriculture. “Together they will usher in a new dawn for humanity, creating wealth and surplus unlike anything ever seen,” he writes.

But what is striking about Suleyman’s heavily promoted book is how the optimism of his will is overwhelmed by the pessimism of his intellect, to borrow a phrase from the Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci. For most of history, the challenge of technology has been to unleash its power, Suleyman writes. Now the challenge has flipped.

In the 21st century, the dilemma will be how to contain technology’s power given the capabilities of these new technologies have exploded and the costs of developing them have collapsed. “Containment is not, on the face of it, possible. And yet for all our sakes, containment must be possible,” he writes…(More)”.

Data Commons

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by R. V. Guha et al: “Publicly available data from open sources (e.g., United States Census Bureau (Census), World Health Organization (WHO), Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are vital resources for policy makers, students and researchers across different disciplines. Combining data from different sources requires the user to reconcile the differences in schemas, formats, assumptions, and more. This data wrangling is time consuming, tedious and needs to be repeated by every user of the data. Our goal with Data Commons (DC) is to help make public data accessible and useful to those who want to understand this data and use it to solve societal challenges and opportunities. We do the data processing and make the processed data widely available via standard schemas and Cloud APIs. Data Commons is a distributed network of sites that publish data in a common schema and interoperate using the Data Commons APIs. Data from different Data Commons can be ‘joined’ easily. The aggregate of these Data Commons can be viewed as a single Knowledge Graph. This Knowledge Graph can then be searched over using Natural Language questions utilizing advances in Large Language Models. This paper describes the architecture of Data Commons, some of the major deployments and highlights directions for future work…(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)”.