Category: Governance
-
Digitalizing Sovereignty – II
Back in 1993, I was leading a global program‘s developmental and technical components to connect developing countries to the Internet. Its core goal was to spread information on sustainable development following the UN 1992 Earth Summit agreements. The program started with a pilot in ten countries and eventually expanded to 50 across all regions. As…
-
Digitalizing Sovereignty – I
A few months ago, I landed at New York’s JFK airport. Fortunately, my flight went smoothly and arrived on time in the early evening. After a long walk to the immigration booths, the cue lines were also extensive, as expected. Usually, arriving passengers are split into citizens, residents, and visitors (previously categorized as “aliens”). Diplomats…
-
AI in the Public Sector – III
Needless to say, digital technologies are not strangers to the public sector. Indeed, Digital Government (DG) has been the subject of extensive academic research that has showcased frameworks, opportunities, and failures, including in the Global South. Initially born as e-government, the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in and by the public sector has…
-
AI in the Public Sector – II
While competing theories on public services exist, two of the most relevant deserve special mention. In one corner is the French conception, which stems from the French Revolution and directly links public services to the state within a rights-based framework. It is thus very close to the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. On…
-
AI in the Public Sector – I
Historically, the public sector has not been a leader in deploying digital technologies. In fact, it is usually a step or two behind other sectors, including civil society organizations. Reasons for such a predicament go beyond bureaucracy and, in numerous instances, are linked to legitimacy, transparency, and accountability. After all, spending public resources responsibly demands…
-
The Information Disorder: A Critique – III
As previously suggested, the three core information categories proposed by the Information Disorder Framework (IDF)—disinformation, misinformation and malinformation—are not orthogonal. Indeed, a given message can change from one to the other as it rapidly flows through the Internet pipes, trying to feel at home in noisy, warm data centers. Clearly, what to an “evil” agent…
-
The Information Disorder: A Critique – II
While disinformation has been comfortably living in the beautiful and diverse geographies of the Global South for many decades, its grandchild, digital disinformation, is undoubtedly much younger, with not a single white hair yet visible. Indeed, digital disinformation is a 21st-century phenomenon, propelled by the emergence of the Internet and the seemingly unavoidable rise of…
-
The Information Disorder: A Critique – I
Disinformation has been an almost constant threat in the Global South, haunting middle and lower-income countries for decades, if not longer, before it suddenly exploded in advanced democratic regimes. In a previous post, I recounted my daily experience of swimming in a vast ocean of disinformation. Some researchers have argued that colonialism was one of…
-
Measuring AI, Responsibly – V
In the previous post of this series, I was surprised to uncover the lack of a positive correlation between GIRAI and regime types—as defined by The Economist Democracy Index (EDI). I expected the opposite since GIRAI’s design is driven by a human rights agenda. That is, countries with democratic regimes should achieve higher GIRAI scores.…
-
A Decolonial Hegel
The road that took me to Hegel was long and winding—to almost paraphrase the Beatles’ last album song. I first spent two-plus years studying engineering, trying to tame incommensurable, difficult-to-digest content under the headings of calculus, advanced mathematics, statistics, and physics. Sleeping was a luxury while staying alive was the goal, pace The Bee Gees.…
-
Measuring AI, Responsibly – IV
The complexity of measuring RAI in over one hundred countries covering all regions should not be underestimated. GIRAI’s undertaking should thereby be acknowledged and openly praised. In a previous life, I had the opportunity to manage a global ICT for development program covering over 50 countries in all regions. While sleep time suffered quite a…
-
Measuring AI, Responsibly – III
Although not unchallenged, GDP remains the indicator’s champion — I am sure Kuznets must still be delighted about this. Most nations work very hard to make it grow at all costs, as, in principle, the gains translate into higher living standards and human development, which are very laudable goals indeed. The flip side is its…
-
Measuring AI, Responsibly – II
Most reports presenting indices of any kind include a section or annex detailing its methodology and furnishing basic equations to replicate index calculations. Unfortunately, GIRAI does not follow such a pattern. The report has scant information on the topic. The website explains a bit more but falls short, too. However, the latter links to a…
-
Measuring AI, Responsibly – I
First published in 2017, Stanford’s AI Index Report provides extensive AI information covering a wide range of topics. Take no prisoners seems to be its implicit motto. The latest 2024 version is the most voluminous yet, with over 450 pages. Areas such as the economy, health, policy and governance, and diversity are part of the…
-
AI’s Solo Learning
From a philosophical perspective, the schism between symbolic and connectionist AI boils down to a question of epistemology, which, in turn, triggers additional ontological and ethical differences between the two—as mentioned in my previous post. How a computational agent learns is thus at the core of such a discord. Today, connectionist AI rules the world…