Author: The Conversation

BY Holly Willis, University of Southern California The bitter conflict between actors, writers and other creative professionals and the major movie and TV studios represents a flashpoint in the radical transformation roiling the entertainment industry. The ongoing strikes by the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild were sparked in part by artificial intelligence and its use in the movie industry. Both actors and writers fear that the major studios, including Amazon/MGM, Apple, Disney/ABC/Fox, NBCUniversal, Netflix, Paramount/CBS, Sony, Warner Bros. and HBO, will use generative AI to exploit them. Generative AI is a form of artificial intelligence that…

by Bhaso Ndzendze, University of Johannesburg and Siphamandla Zondi, University of Johannesburg Eager to escape perceived western domination, several countries – mostly in the global south – are looking to join the Brics bloc. The five-country bloc (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) is also looking to grow its global partnerships. What began in 2001 as an acronym for four of the fastest growing states, BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China), is projected to account for 45% of global GDP in purchasing power parity terms by 2030. It has evolved into a political formation as well. Crucial to this…

by Guillaume Thierry, Bangor University The release of the advanced chatbot ChatGPT in 2022 got everyone talking about artificial intelligence (AI). Its sophisticated capabilities amplified concerns about AI becoming so advanced that soon we would not be able to control it. This even led some experts and industry leaders to warn that the technology could lead to human extinction. Other commentators, though, were not convinced. Noam Chomsky, a professor of linguistics, dismissed ChatGPT as “hi-tech plagiarism”. For years, I was relaxed about the prospect of AI’s impact on human existence and our environment. That’s because I always thought of it…

by Nnenna Ifeanyi-Ajufo, University of Bradford _Several African countries are pursuing digital transformation ambitions – applying new technologies to enhance the development of society. But concerns exist over the absence of appropriate policies across the continent to create a resilient and secure cyber environment. Nnenna Ifeanyi-Ajufo, a technology law expert, explains the current cyber governance situation in Africa. What is cyber governance and why is it so important? Cyber governance is an important aspect of the international cybersecurity strategy for preventing and mitigating cyber threats. It features oversight processes, decision-making hierarchies and international cooperation. It also includes systems for accountability…

BY Emilio Ferrara, University of Southern California When I asked ChatGPT for a joke about Sicilians the other day, it implied that Sicilians are stinky. ChatGPT can sometimes produce stereotypical or offensive outputs. Screen capture by Emilio Ferrara, CC BY-ND As somebody born and raised in Sicily, I reacted to ChatGPT’s joke with disgust. But at the same time, my computer scientist brain began spinning around a seemingly simple question: Should ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence systems be allowed to be biased? You might say “Of course not!” And that would be a reasonable response. But there are some researchers,…

by Bruce Schneier, Harvard Kennedy School and Nathan Sanders, Harvard University If you ask Alexa, Amazon’s voice assistant AI system, whether Amazon is a monopoly, it responds by saying it doesn’t know. It doesn’t take much to make it lambaste the other tech giants, but it’s silent about its own corporate parent’s misdeeds. When Alexa responds in this way, it’s obvious that it is putting its developer’s interests ahead of yours. Usually, though, it’s not so obvious whom an AI system is serving. To avoid being exploited by these systems, people will need to learn to approach AI skeptically. That…

by Wally Smith, The University of Melbourne and Greg Wadley, The University of Melbourne Most of us go online multiple times a day. About half of 18–29 year olds surveyed in a 2021 Pew Research Study said they are “almost constantly” connected. How are we to make sense of this significant digital dimension of modern life? Many questions have rightly been asked about its broader consequences for society and the economy. But there remains a simpler question about what motivates people across a range of ages, occupations and cultures to be so absorbed in digital connection. And we can turn…

by Thomas Daum, University of Hohenheim; Frédéric Baudron, International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT); Ingo Grass, University of Hohenheim; Matin Qaim, University of Bonn, and Regina Birner, University of Hohenheim Cultivating one hectare of maize used to be an arduous task for Precious Banda, a farmer in Zambia. It would take her hundreds of hours to prepare her land before sowing and to keep it weed-free until harvest – equipped with nothing but a small hoe. She says it was backbreaking work: “I can still feel it.” For a few years now she has hired a tractor, and a…

by Nir Eisikovits, UMass Boston The rise of ChatGPT and similar artificial intelligence systems has been accompanied by a sharp increase in anxiety about AI. For the past few months, executives and AI safety researchers have been offering predictions, dubbed “P(doom),” about the probability that AI will bring about a large-scale catastrophe. Worries peaked in May 2023 when the nonprofit research and advocacy organization Center for AI Safety released a one-sentence statement: “Mitigating the risk of extinction from A.I. should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks, such as pandemics and nuclear war.” The statement was signed by many…

by Casey Fiesler, University of Colorado Boulder Twitter’s move on July 1, 2023, to limit the number of tweets users can see in a day was the latest in a series of decisions that has spurred millions of users to sign up with alternative microblogging platforms since Elon Musk acquired Twitter last year. In addition to a surge in numbers on Mastodon, the acquisition and subsequent changes boosted small existing platforms like Hive Social and has spawned brand new upstarts like Spoutible and Spill. Most recently the microblogging platform backed by Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, Bluesky, saw a surge of…