Paper by Nathan Schneider: “…outlines a theory of amnesia in the face of innovation: when apparent technological innovations occasion the disregard of preexisting cultural, legal, and infrastructural norms. Innovation amnesia depends on cultural patterns that appear to be increasingly widespread: the valorization of technological innovation and the sensation of limited political space for reforming social arrangements. The resulting amnesia is by default an extension of existing structural inequalities. If innovations arise through deploying concentrated private wealth, the amnesia will likely target institutions that facilitate collective power among less powerful people. Up and down social hierarchies, however, achieving amnesia through innovation can bear irresistible allure. When other paths for structural change become mired in inertia or gridlock, amnesia may appear to be the only available pathway to reform. The purpose of a theory of amnesia is to assist affected communities in noticing it when it occurs and wielding it to their advantage, particularly through mobilizing self-governance around moments of innovation…(More)”.
Information Technology for Peace and Security
Book edited by Christian Reuter: “Technological and scientific progress, especially the rapid development in information technology (IT) and artificial intelligence (AI), plays a crucial role regarding questions of peace and security. This textbook, extended and updated in its second edition, addresses the significance, potential of IT, as well as the challenges it poses, with regard to peace and security.
It introduces the reader to the concepts of peace, conflict, and security research, especially focusing on natural, technical and computer science perspectives. In the following sections, it sheds light on cyber conflicts, war and peace, cyber arms control, cyber attribution, infrastructures, artificial intelligence, as well ICT in peace and conflict…(More)”.
Lottocracy: Democracy Without Elections
Book by Alexander Guerrero: “Democracy is in trouble. The system isn’t working. Inequality increases, many can barely get by, the elite control our political institutions. The earth, our only home, gets warmer year by year. We are deeply divided, unable to work together to address the problems we face. What if elections are the problem?
Lottocracy makes the case that electoral representative democracy—although the best form of government that has been tried—runs into deep problems in the modern world.
But it is not a message of despair. To the contrary. Lottocracy sets out a detailed vision of a new kind of democracy, as system that uses lotteries, rather than elections, to select our political representatives.
Perhaps we can use this wild ancient idea to build a new, better democracy for the 21st century and beyond…(More)”.
Enabling Digital Innovation in Government
OECD Report: “…presents the OECD’s definition of GovTech (Chapter 2) and sets out the GovTech Policy Framework (Chapter 3). The framework is designed to guide governments on how to establish the conditions for successful, sustainable, and effective GovTech.
The framework consists of two parts: the GovTech Building Blocks and the GovTech Enablers. The building blocks (Chapter 3) represent the foundations at the micro-level needed to establish impactful GovTech practices within public sectors by introducing more agile practices, mitigating risks, and building meaningful collaboration with the GovTech ecosystem. These building blocks include:
- Mature digital government infrastructure: including the necessary technology, infrastructure, tools, and data governance to enable both GovTech collaborations and the digital solutions they develop.
- Capacities for collaboration and experimentation: within the public sector, including the digital skills and multidisciplinary teams; agile processes, tools, and methodologies; and a culture that encourages experimentation and accepts failure.
- Resources and implementation support: considering how to make funding available, how to evolve procurement approaches, and how to scale successful pilots across organisations and internationally.
- Availability and maturity of GovTech partners: including acceleration programmes to support start-ups growth by facilitating access to capital, the scaling up of solutions, and minimising barriers to access procurement opportunities.
At the macro-level, the enablers (Chapter 4) instead create an environment that fosters the development of GovTech and facilitates good practices. This is done at the:
- Strategic layer: where governments could use GovTech strategies and champions in senior leadership positions to mobilise support and set a clear direction for GovTech.
- Institutional layer: where governments could seek collaboration and knowledge-sharing across institutions at the national, regional, or policy levels.
- Network layer: where both governments and GovTech actors should seek to mobilise the network collectively to strengthen the GovTech practice and garner broader support from communities…(More)”
Local Systems
Position Paper by USAID: “…describes the key approaches USAID will use to translate systems thinking into systems practice. It focuses on ways USAID can better understand and engage local systems to support them in producing more sustainable results. Systems thinking is a mindset and set of tools that we use to understand how systems behave and produce certain results or outcomes. Systems practice is the application of systems thinking to better understand challenges and strengthen the capacity of local systems to unlock locally led, sustained progress. The shift from systems thinking to systems practice is driven by a desire to integrate systems practice throughout the Program Cycle and increase our capacity to actively and adaptively manage programming in ways that recognize complexity and help make our programs more effective and sustainable.
These approaches will be utilized alongside and within the context of USAID’s policies and guidance, including technical guidance for specific sectors, as well as evidence and lessons learned from partners around the world. Systems thinking is a long-standing discipline that can serve as a powerful tool for understanding and working with local systems. It has been a consistent component of USAID’s decades-long commitment to locally led development and humanitarian assistance. USAID uses systems thinking to better understand the complex and interrelated challenges we confront – from climate change to migration to governance – and the perspectives of diverse stakeholders on these issues. When we understand challenges as complex systems – where outcomes emerge from the interactions and relationships between actors and elements in that system – we can leverage and help strengthen the local capacities and relationships that will ultimately drive sustainable progress…(More)”.
Science and technology’s contribution to the UK economy
UK House of Lords Primer: “It is difficult to accurately pinpoint the economic contribution of science and technology to the UK economy. This is because of the way sectors are divided up and reported in financial statistics.
For example, in September 2024 the Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported the following gross value added (GVA) figures by industry/sector for 2023:
- £71bn for IT and other information service activities
- £20.6bn for scientific research and development
This would amount to £91.6bn, forming approximately 3.9% of the total UK GVA of £2,368.7bn for 2023. However, a number of other sectors could also be included in these figures, for example:
- the manufacture of computer, certain machinery and electrical components (valued at £38bn in 2023)
- telecommunications (valued at £34.5bn)
If these two sectors were included too, GVA across all four sectors would total £164.1bn, approximately 6.9% of the UK’s 2023 GVA. However, this would likely still exclude relevant contributions that happen to fall within the definitions of different industries. For example, the manufacture of spacecraft and related machinery falls within the same sector as the manufacture of aircraft in the ONS’s data (this sector was valued at £10.8bn for 2023).
Alternatively, others have made estimates of the economic contribution of more specific sectors connected to science and technology. For example:
- Oxford Economics, an economic advisory firm, has estimated that, in 2023, the life sciences sector contributed over £13bn to the UK economy and employed one in every 121 employed people
- the government has estimated the value of the digital sector (comprising information technology and digital content and media) at £158.3bn for 2022
- a 2023 government report estimated the value of the UK’s artificial intelligence (AI) sector at around £3.7bn (in terms of GVA) and that the sector employed around 50,040 people
- the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit, a non-profit organisation, reported estimates that the GVA of the UK’s net zero economy (encompassing sectors such as renewables, carbon capture, green and certain manufacturing) was £74bn in 2022/23 and that it supported approximately 765,700 full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs…(More)”.
The Critical Role of Questions in Building Resilient Democracies
Article by Stefaan G. Verhulst, Hannah Chafetz, and Alex Fischer: “Asking questions in new and participatory ways can complement advancements in data science and AI while enabling more inclusive and more adaptive democracies…
Yet a crisis, as the saying goes, always contains kernels of opportunity. Buried within our current dilemma—indeed, within one of the underlying causes of it—is a potential solution. Democracies are resilient and adaptive, not static. And importantly, data and artificial intelligence (AI), if implemented responsibly, can contribute to making them more resilient. Technologies such as AI-supported digital public squares and crowd-sourcing are examples of how generative AI and large language models can improve community connectivity, societal health, and public services. Communities can leverage these tools for democratic participation and democratizing information. Through this period of technological transition, policy makers and communities are imagining how digital technologies can better engage our collective intelligence…
Achieving this requires new tools and approaches, specifically the collective process of asking better questions.
Formulated inclusively, questions help establish shared priorities and impart focus, efficiency, and equity to public policy. For instance, school systems can identify indicators and patterns of experiences, such as low attendance rates, that signal a student is at risk of not completing school. However, they rarely ask the positive outlier question of what enables some at-risk students to overcome challenges and finish school. Is it a good teacher relationship, an after-school program, the support of a family member, or a combination of these and other factors? Asking outlier (and orphan, or overlooked and neglected) questions can help refocus programs and guide policies toward areas with the highest potential for impact.
Not asking the right questions can also have adverse effects. For example, many city governments have not asked whether and how people of different genders, in different age groups, or with different physical mobility needs experience local public transportation systems. Creating the necessary infrastructure for people with a variety of needs to travel safely and efficiently increases health and well-being. Questions like whether sidewalks are big enough for strollers and whether there is sufficient public transport near schools can help spotlight areas for improvement, and show where age- or gender-disaggregated data is needed most…(More)”.
G7 Toolkit for Artificial Intelligence in the Public Sector
Toolkit by OECD: “…a comprehensive guide designed to help policymakers and public sector leaders translate principles for safe, secure, and trustworthy Artificial Intelligence (AI) into actionable policies. AI can help improve the efficiency of internal operations, the effectiveness of policymaking, the responsiveness of public services, and overall transparency and accountability. Recognising both the opportunities and risks posed by AI, this toolkit provides practical insights, shares good practices for the use of AI in and by the public sector, integrates ethical considerations, and provides an overview of G7 trends. It further showcases public sector AI use cases, detailing their benefits, as well as the implementation challenges faced by G7 members, together with the emerging policy responses to guide and coordinate the development, deployment, and use of AI in the public sector. The toolkit finally highlights key stages and factors characterising the journey of public sector AI solutions…(More)”
How elderly dementia patients are unwittingly fueling political campaigns
Article by Blake Ellis, et al: “The 80-year-old communications engineer from Texas had saved for decades, driving around in an old car and buying clothes from thrift stores so he’d have enough money to enjoy his retirement years.
But as dementia robbed him of his reasoning abilities, he began making online political donations over and over again — eventually telling his son he believed he was part of a network of political operatives communicating with key Republican leaders. In less than two years, the man became one of the country’s largest grassroots supporters of the Republican Party, ultimately giving away nearly half a million dollars to former President Donald Trump and other candidates. Now, the savings account he spent his whole life building is practically empty.
The story of this unlikely political benefactor is one of many playing out across the country.
More than 1,000 reports filed with government agencies and consumer advocacy groups reviewed by CNN, along with an analysis of campaign finance data and interviews with dozens of contributors and their family members, show how deceptive political fundraisers have victimized hundreds of elderly Americans and misled those battling dementia or other cognitive impairments into giving away millions of dollars — far more than they ever intended. Some unintentionally joined the ranks of the top grassroots political donors in the country as they tapped into retirement savings and went into debt, contributing six-figure sums through thousands of transactions…(More)”.
AI in the Public Service: Here for Good
Special Issue of Ethos: “…For the public good, we want AI to help unlock and drive transformative impact, in areas where there is significant potential for breakthroughs, such as cancer research, material sciences or climate change. But we also want to raise the level of generalised adoption. For the user base in the public sector, we want to learn how best to use this new tool in ways that can allow us to not only do things better, but do better things.
This is not to suggest that AI is always the best solution: it is one of many tools in the digital toolkit. Sometimes, simpler computational methods will suffice. That said, AI represents new, untapped potential for the Public Service to enhance our daily work and deliver better outcomes that ultimately benefit Singapore and Singaporeans….
To promote general adoption, we made available AI tools, such as Pair, 1 SmartCompose, 2 and AIBots. 3 They are useful to a wide range of public officers for many general tasks. Other common tools of this nature may include chatbots to support customer-facing and service delivery needs, translation, summarisation, and so on. Much of what public officers do involves words and language, which is an area that LLM-based AI technology can now help with.
Beyond improving the productivity of the Public Service, the real value lies in AI’s broader ability to transform our business and operating models to deliver greater impact. In driving adoption, we want to encourage public officers to experiment with different approaches to figure out where we can create new value by doing things differently, rather than just settle for incremental value from doing things the same old ways using new tools.
For example, we have seen how AI and automation have transformed language translation, software engineering, identity verification and border clearance. This is just the beginning and much more is possible in many other domains…(More)”.