control

Reclaiming our agency over AI

The AI Now Institute has published a most timely and incisive “Artificial Power: 2025 Landscape Report”, proposing an actionable strategy for the public to reclaim agency over the future of AI. Excerpt from the Executive Summary:

“Why society would ever accept this bargain is the critical question at hand. Amid the excitement over AI’s (speculative) potential, the sobering reality of its present and recent past is obscured. When we consult the record on how AI is already intermediating critical social infrastructures, we see that it is materially reshaping our institutions in ways that ratchet up inequality, render institutions opaque to those they are meant to serve, and concentrate power in the hands of the already powerful. It makes clear that for all the whiz-bang demos and bold Davos proclamations, on the ground AI is consistently deployed in ways that make everyday people’s lives, material conditions, and access to opportunities worse and the systems that incorporate them stronger.”

Read more...
Posted by Aldo de Moor in Ideas, 0 comments

New publication: Communities in Context: Towards Taking Control of Their Tools in Common(s)

Just published: A. de Moor (2015). Communities in Context: Towards Taking Control of Their Tools in Common(s). In The Journal of Community Informatics, 11(2).

figure1

Abstract:

In this exploratory paper, we outline some issues of inter-community socio-technical systems governance. Our purpose here is not to solve these issues, but to raise awareness about the complexity of socio-technical governance issues encountered in practice. We aim to expand on the rather abstract definition of community-based Internet governance as proposed in the Internet for the Common Good Declaration, exploring how it plays out in practice in actual collaborating communities.  We introduce a simple conceptual model to frame these issues and illustrate them with a concrete case: the drafting and signing of the declaration.… Read more...

Posted by Aldo de Moor in CommunitySense, Publications, 0 comments