Rethinking Dual-Use Technology

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Artur Kluz and Stefaan Verhulst: “A new concept of “triple use” — where technology serves commercial, defense, and peacebuilding purposes — may offer a breakthrough solution for founders, investors and society to explore….

As a result of the resurgence of geopolitical tensions, the debate about the applications of dual-use technology is intensifying. The core issue founders, tech entrepreneurs, venture capitalists (VCs), and limited partner investors (LPs) are examining is whether commercial technologies should increasingly be re-used for military purposes. Traditionally, the majority of  investors (including limited partners) have prohibited dual-use tech in their agreements. However, the rapidly growing dual-use market, with its substantial addressable size and growth potential, is compelling all stakeholders to reconsider this stance. The pressure for innovations, capital returns and Return On Investment (ROI) is driving the need for a solution. 

These discussions are fraught with moral complexity, but they also present an opportunity to rethink the dual-use paradigm and foster investment in technologies aimed at supporting peace. A new concept of “triple use”— where technology serves commercial, defense, and peacebuilding purposes — may offer an innovative and more positive avenue for founders, investors and society to explore. This additional re-use, which remains in an incipient state, is increasingly being referred to as PeaceTech. By integrating terms dedicated to PeaceTech in new and existing investment and LP agreements, tech companies, founders and venture capital investors can be also required to apply their technology for peacebuilding purposes. This approach can expand the applications of emerging technologies to also include conflict prevention, reconstruction or any humanitarian aspects.

However, current efforts to use technologies for peacebuilding are impeded by various obstacles, including a lack of awareness within the tech sector and among investors, limited commercial interest, disparities in technical capacity, privacy concerns, international relations and political complexities. In the below we examine some of these challenges, while also exploring certain avenues for overcoming them — including approaching technologies for peace as a “triple use” application. We will especially try to identify examples of how tech companies, tech entrepreneurs, accelerators, and tech investors including VCs and LPs can commercially benefit and support “triple use” technologies. Ultimately, we argue, the vast potential — largely untapped — of “triple use” technologies calls for a new wave of tech ecosystem transformation and public and private investments as well as the development of a new field of research…(More)”.

Policy fit for the future: the Australian Government Futures primer

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Primer by Will Hartigan and Arthur Horobin: “Futures is a systematic exploration of probable, possible and preferable future developments to inform present-day policy, strategy and decision-making. It uses multiple plausible scenarios of the future to anticipate and make sense of disruptive change. It is also known as strategic foresight...

This primer provides an overview of Futures methodologies and their practical application to policy development and advice. It is a first step for policy teams and officers interested in Futures: providing you with a range of flexible tools, ideas and advice you can adapt to your own policy challenges and environments.

This primer was developed by the Policy Projects and Taskforce Office in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet. We have drawn on expertise from inside and outside of government –including through our project partners, the Futures Hub at the National Security College in the Australian National University. 

This primer has been written by policy officers, for policy officers –with a focus on practical and tested approaches that can support you to create policy fit for the future…(More)”.

Automating public services

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by Anna Dent: “…Public bodies, under financial stress and looking for effective solutions, are at risk of jumping on the automation bandwagon without critically assessing whether it’s actually appropriate for their needs, and whether the potential benefits outweigh the risks. To realise the benefits of automation and minimise problems for communities and public bodies themselves, a clear-eyed approach which really gets to grips with the risks is needed. 

The temptation to introduce automation to tackle complex social challenges is strong; they are often deep-rooted and expensive to deal with, and can have life-long implications for individuals and communities. But precisely because of their complex nature they are not the best fit for rules-based automated processes, which may fail to deliver what they set out to achieve. 

Bias is increasingly recognised as a critical challenge with automation in the public sector. Bias can be introduced through training data, and can occur when automated tools are disproportionately used on a particular community. In either case, the effectiveness of the tool or process is undermined, and citizens are at risk of discrimination, unfair targeting and exclusion from services. 

Automated tools and processes rely on huge amounts of data; in public services this will often mean personal information and data about us and our lives which we may or may not feel comfortable being used. Balancing everyone’s right to privacy with the desire for efficiency and better outcomes is rarely straightforward, and if done badly can lead to a breakdown in trust…(More)”.

The Tech Coup

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Marietje Schaake: “Over the past decades, under the cover of “innovation,” technology companies have successfully resisted regulation and have even begun to seize power from governments themselves. Facial recognition firms track citizens for police surveillance. Cryptocurrency has wiped out the personal savings of millions and threatens the stability of the global financial system. Spyware companies sell digital intelligence tools to anyone who can afford them. This new reality—where unregulated technology has become a forceful instrument for autocrats around the world—is terrible news for democracies and citizens.
In The Tech Coup, Marietje Schaake offers a behind-the-scenes account of how technology companies crept into nearly every corner of our lives and our governments. She takes us beyond the headlines to high-stakes meetings with human rights defenders, business leaders, computer scientists, and politicians to show how technologies—from social media to artificial intelligence—have gone from being heralded as utopian to undermining the pillars of our democracies. To reverse this existential power imbalance, Schaake outlines game-changing solutions to empower elected officials and citizens alike. Democratic leaders can—and must—resist the influence of corporate lobbying and reinvent themselves as dynamic, flexible guardians of our digital world.

Drawing on her experiences in the halls of the European Parliament and among Silicon Valley insiders, Schaake offers a frightening look at our modern tech-obsessed world—and a clear-eyed view of how democracies can build a better future before it is too late…(More)”.

Digitally Invisible: How the Internet is Creating the New Underclass

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Book by Nicol Turner Lee: “President Joe Biden has repeatedly said that the United States would close the digital divide under his leadership. However, the divide still affects people and communities across the country. The complex and persistent reality is that millions of residents live in digital deserts, and many more face disproportionate difficulties when it comes to getting and staying online, especially people of color, seniors, rural residents, and farmers in remote areas.

Economic and health disparities are worsening in rural communities without available internet access. Students living in urban digital deserts with little technology exposure are ill prepared to compete for emerging occupations. Even seniors struggle to navigate the aging process without access to online information and remote care.

In this book, Nicol Turner Lee, a leading expert on the American digital divide, uses personal stories from individuals around the country to show how the emerging digital underclass is navigating the spiraling online economy, while sharing their joys and hopes for an equitable and just future.

Turner Lee argues that achieving digital equity is crucial for the future of America’s global competitiveness and requires radical responses to offset the unintended consequences of increasing digitization. In the end, “Digitally Invisible” proposes a pathway to more equitable access to existing and emerging technologies, while encouraging readers to weigh in on this shared goal…(More)”.

The Department of Everything

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Stephen Akey: “How do you find the life expectancy of a California condor? Google it. Or the gross national product of Morocco? Google it. Or the final resting place of Tom Paine? Google it. There was a time, however—not all that long ago—when you couldn’t Google it or ask Siri or whatever cyber equivalent comes next. You had to do it the hard way—by consulting reference books, indexes, catalogs, almanacs, statistical abstracts, and myriad other printed sources. Or you could save yourself all that time and trouble by taking the easiest available shortcut: You could call me.

From 1984 to 1988, I worked in the Telephone Reference Division of the Brooklyn Public Library. My seven or eight colleagues and I spent the days (and nights) answering exactly such questions. Our callers were as various as New York City itself: copyeditors, fact checkers, game show aspirants, journalists, bill collectors, bet settlers, police detectives, students and teachers, the idly curious, the lonely and loquacious, the park bench crazies, the nervously apprehensive. (This last category comprised many anxious patients about to undergo surgery who called us for background checks on their doctors.) There were telephone reference divisions in libraries all over the country, but this being New York City, we were an unusually large one with an unusually heavy volume of calls. And if I may say so, we were one of the best. More than one caller told me that we were a legend in the world of New York magazine publishing…(More)”.

Kenya’s biggest protest in recent history played out on a walkie-talkie app

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Stephanie Wangari: “Betty had never heard of the Zello app until June 18.

But as she participated in Kenya’s “GenZ protests” that month — one of the biggest in the country’s history — the app became her savior.

On Zello, “we were getting updates and also updating others on where the tear-gas canisters were being lobbed and which streets had been cordoned off,” Betty, 27, told Rest of World, requesting to be identified by a pseudonym as she feared backlash from the police. “At one point, I also alerted the group [about] suspected undercover investigative officers who were wearing balaclavas.”

The speed of communicating over Zello made it the primary tool to mobilize crowds and coordinate logistics during the protests. Stephanie Wangari

Nairobi witnessed massive protests in June as thousands of young Kenyans came out on the streets against a proposed bill that would increase taxes on staple foods and other essential goods and services. At least 39 people were killed, 361 were injured, and more than 335 were arrested by the police during the protests, according to human rights groups.

Amid the mayhem, Zello, an app developed by U.S. engineer Alexey Gavrilov in 2007, became the primary tool for protestors to communicate, mobilize crowds, and coordinate logistics. Six protesters told Rest of World that Zello, which allows smartphones to be used as walkie-talkies, helped them find meeting points, evade the police, and alert each other to potential dangers. 

Digital services experts and political analysts said the app helped the protests become one of the most effective in the country’s history.

According to Herman Manyora, a political analyst and lecturer at the University of Nairobi, mobilization had always been the greatest challenge in organizing previous protests in Kenya. The ability to turn their “phones into walkie-talkies” made the difference for protesters, he told Rest of World.

“The government realized that the young people were able to navigate technological challenges. You switch off one app, such as [X], they move to another,” Manyora said.

Zello was downloaded over 40,000 times on the Google Play store in Kenya between June 17 and June 25, according to data from the company. This was “well above our usual numbers,” a company spokesperson told Rest of World. Zello did not respond to additional requests for comment…(More)“

Increasing The “Policy Readiness” Of Ideas

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Article by Tom Kalil: “NASA and the Defense Department have developed an analytical framework called the “technology readiness level” for assessing the maturity of a technology – from basic research to a technology that is ready to be deployed.  

A policy entrepreneur (anyone with an idea for a policy solution that will drive positive change) needs to realize that it is also possible to increase the “policy readiness” level of an idea by taking steps to increase the chances that a policy idea is successful, if adopted and implemented.  Given that policy-makers are often time constrained, they are more likely to consider ideas where more thought has been given to the core questions that they may need to answer as part of the policy process.

A good first step is to ask questions about the policy landscape surrounding a particular idea:

1. What is a clear description of the problem or opportunity?  What is the case for policymakers to devote time, energy, and political capital to the problem?

2. Is there a credible rationale for government involvement or policy change?  

Economists have developed frameworks for both market failure (such as public goods, positive and negative externalities, information asymmetries, and monopolies) and government failure (such as regulatory capture, the role of interest groups in supporting policies that have concentrated benefits and diffuse costs, limited state capacity, and the inherent difficulty of aggregating timely, relevant information to make and implement policy decisions.)

3. Is there a root cause analysis of the problem? …(More)”.

What does a ‘mission-driven’ approach to government mean and how can it be delivered?

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Report by the Institute for Government and Nesta: “… set out a recommended approach for how government could effectively organise itself to deliver missions. It should act as a guide for public servants at the start of a new administration that has pledged to do things differently.

Missions are designed to set bold visions for change, inspiring collaboration across the system and society to break down silos and work towards a common goal. They represent the ultimate purpose of the Government, and the story it aims to tell by the end of the Parliament.

To succeed, government will need to adopt three key roles: driving public service innovation, shaping markets and harnessing collective intelligence to improve decision-making. Achieving these missions will require strong foundations and well-recognised enablers of good government, pursued in a specific manner to bring about a cultural change in Whitehall…(More)”.

Against Elections: The Lottocratic Alternative

Curated on Posted on by Stefaan Verhulst

Paper by Alexander A. Guerrero: “It is widely accepted that electoral representative democracy is better — along a number of different normative dimensions — than any other alternative lawmaking political arrangement. It is not typically seen as much of a competition: it is also widely accepted that the only legitimate alternative to electoral representative democracy is some form of direct democracy, but direct democracy — we are told — would lead to bad policy. This article makes the case that there is a legitimate alternative system — one that uses lotteries, not elections, to select political officials — that would be better than electoral representative democracy. Part I diagnoses two significant failings of modern-day systems of electoral representative government: the failure of responsiveness and the failure of good governance. The argument offered suggests that these flaws run deep, so that even significant and politically unlikely reforms with respect to campaign finance and election law would make little difference. Although my distillation of the argument is novel, the basic themes will likely be familiar. I anticipate the initial response to the argument may be familiar as well: the Churchillian shrug. Parts II, III, and IV of this article represent the beginning of an effort to move past that response, to think about alternative political systems that might avoid some of the problems with the electoral representative system without introducing new and worse problems. In the second and third parts of the article, I outline an alternative political system, the lottocratic system, and present some of the virtues of such a system. In the fourth part of the article, I consider some possible problems for the system. The overall aims of this article are to raise worries for electoral systems of government, to present the lottocratic system and to defend the view that this system might be a normatively attractive alternative, removing a significant hurdle to taking a non-electoral system of government seriously as a possible improvement to electoral democracy…(More)”