The pace of generative AI development has been astonishing to the degree that the normative space has been unable to keep up. As governments start looking into some implementations of the technology, such as ChatGPT, more advanced techniques and products continue to emerge by the day. Society is changing in irrevocable ways, and it is paramount that the Internet Governance community turns its attention to this question. more
Large Language Models (LLM) like GPT -- 4 and its front-end ChatGPT work by ingesting gigantic amounts of text from the Internet to train the model and then responding to prompts with text generated from those models. Depending on who you ask, this is either one step (or maybe no steps) from Artificial General Intelligence, or as Ted Chiang wrote in the New Yorker, ChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web. more
I recently attended a workshop on Lessons Learned from 40 Years of the Internet, and the topic of the Internet as a Public Utility in the context of national regulatory frameworks came up. For me, 40 years is just enough time to try and phrase an answer to the big policy question: Has the Internet been a success in the experiment of using market forces to act as an efficient distributor of a public good? Or has it raised more issues than it has addressed? more
The UK's Foundation Model Taskforce has been established in response to the UK government's ambition to become a leader in the development and use of artificial intelligence (AI). The task force will be supported by £100 million of investment and will focus on building the UK's 'sovereign' national capabilities, so public services can benefit from the transformational impact of this type of AI. more
More than 1,000 experts in the artificial intelligence community have called for an immediate pause on the development of "giant" AI systems like GPT-4 for at least six months. more
Microsoft continues to integrate new artificial intelligence technology into its products and today announced a cybersecurity "copilot" to help companies track and defend against hacking attempts. This tool is part of Microsoft's attempt to dominate the fast-growing field of "generative" AI. more
In the latest twist of the US-China spat, President Trump has his sights on TikTok, the short-form video-sharing platform and ByteDance subsidiary. On July 31, President Trump threatened to ban TikTok because it was a threat to US national security. On August 6, he made good on his threat when he signed an Executive Order to that effect. President Trump tightened the screws with an August 14 Executive Order requiring ByteDance to divest its assets in the US and destroy any TikTok data on its US users within 90 days. more
Grenadian Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell is calling for Caribbean policymakers and business leaders to recognise the significance of artificial intelligence technologies. Artificial intelligence, or AI, refers to the ability of computer systems to do tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, and decision-making. more
On 24-27 April, a 33-year-old international organisation of ICT organisations will convene a meeting at London under ETSI auspices after a four-year hiatus. Known today as the GSC or Global Standards Collaboration organisation, it began its existence in the Spring of 1990 at Fredericksburg, Virginia, as an umbrella mechanism for all of the world's ICT standards bodies to collaborate on "high interest subjects." more
Having been involved in this sector for over fifteen years now, the rate of change in the market dynamics continues to surprise me - from its early years when MarkMonitor and NetNames clearly led the space for several years, then seeing well-funded startups such as Yellow Brand Protection and Incopro challenge that, followed by a period of heavy M&A, it is now extremely diverse. more
It is redundant to point out how much progress AI applications made during the past few years. What is escaping the attention of many people, however, is that in most creative areas, there are already fully working consumer-grade tools based on generative AI that can produce output similar to that of a human with above-average capabilities, and there are many more on the way. These tools also happen to be rather affordable, making them accessible to a large amount of people. more
The debate around encryption has become a hot topic in a world where communications are increasingly becoming digital. The modern encryption debate is a complex and nuanced issue, with many players from different backgrounds trying to influence the conversation. The question of balancing the need for national security with the right to privacy has been a matter of public debate for years. Only recently has the issue been framed in terms of encryption, but the discussion is certainly not new. more
Last Saturday marked the 53rd anniversary of the Internet. While the vast majority of its five billion users have been online for less than a decade, the Internet was taken into use on October 29th, 1969, when two computers connected to the ARPANET exchanged a message. Although the Internet has been around for a while, it remained below most people's radar until the late 1990s when the dot com boom started. more
The war in Ukraine, Metaverse and Splinternet were among the most discussed items during the recent World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos. The topic of cyber security was primarily about the role of cyberattacks in the Ukraine war. Cyber is not the focus of day-to-day public war reporting but is an integral part of warfare on both sides. This applies above all to the use of "social media." more
The year 2025 will be a landmark year for digital diplomacy and global governance. It is the year of wrapping up the UN cybersecurity OEWG and the negotiations on cybercrime at the Ad Hoc group. It's the year UN member states will decide on the future of the World Summit of Information Society process and the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). more
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