A House Democrat is warning artificial intelligence could become a tool of "digital colonialism" if the U.S. doesn't take steps to work with Western Hemisphere nations to create AI systems that reflect diversity and inclusion. Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., proposed a resolution during the August break that says the U.S. must champion a "regional" AI strategy that includes Western Hemisphere nations as this new technology is developed. "United States-led investments in the development of AI in the Western Hemisphere would promote the inclusion and representation of underserved populations in the global development and deployment of AI technologies, ensuring that no individual country dominates AI but rather collaborative developments in the Western Hemisphere," his resolution asserted. WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)? Rep Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., is calling on the U.S. to work closely with Western nations as it develops artificial intelligence systems and guidelines.

The JCU Institute of Future and Innovation Studies organized a roundtable discussion called "Democracy, Technology, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future," on September 10, 2021. The discussion was the first event in the "Democracy Watch" series, which aims to provide a public forum for maintaining a critical and open dialogue about the complex relationships that exist between technology and democracy. JCU President Franco Pavoncello welcomed the participants and gave the opening remarks. Francesco Lapenta, Director of the Institute of Future and Innovation Studies, explained that with technology continually evolving, it is essential to understand its relationship with democracy. According to Lapenta, technological advances have a direct impact on democratic practices and values.

New EU regulations on AI seek to ban mass and indiscriminate surveillance. For many, that is the good news. The'not so good' news is that the proposed prohibitions are considered by some as being too vague, with serious loopholes. Most recently, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) and European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), called for a ban on the use of AI for the automated recognition of human features in "publicly accessible spaces" as well as other uses that might lead to "unfair discrimination". Broadly speaking, this reflects the response to the EU's attempt to set a standard on how tech is regulated around the world.

March 4, 2021--Artificial intelligence is present in most facets of American digital life, but experts are in a constant race to identify and address potential dangers before they impact consumers. From making a simple search on Google to listening to music on Spotify to streaming Tiger King on Netflix, AI is everywhere. Predictive algorithms learn from a consumer's viewing habits and attempt to direct consumers to other content an algorithm thinks a consumer will be interested in. While this can be extremely convenient for consumers, it also raises many concerns. Jaisha Wray, associate administrator for international affairs at the National Telecommunications and Information Administration, was a panelist at a conference hosted Tuesday by the Federal Communications Bar Association.

A viral video shows a young woman conducting an exercise class on a roundabout in the Burmese capital, Nyapyidaw. Behind her a military convoy approaches a checkpoint to go conduct arrests at the Parliament building. Has she inadvertently filmed a coup? The video later became a viral meme, but for the first days, online amateur sleuths debated if it was green-screened or otherwise manipulated, often using the jargon of verification and image forensics. Yet claims of audiovisual manipulation are increasingly being used to make people wonder if what is real is a fake.

For the first time in 2021, a major Machine Learning conference will have a track devoted to disaster response. The 16th Conference of the European Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics (EACL 2021) has a track on "NLP Applications for Emergency Situations and Crisis Management". I am delighted to be the Senior Area Chair for this track! I've worked in machine learning and disaster response for 20 years and I'm glad that more people are now looking into how machine learning can help people at the most critical times. The majority of what goes into a paper on machine learning for disaster response should be the same as any other paper in applied science: reproducible methods that clearly advance our knowledge of how to deploy and evaluate machine learning technologies. However, there are aspects of disaster response that make some aspects of the science more important and a few aspects that are unique to disaster response.

Work and Winnefeld discuss the Pentagon's "Third Offset" Strategy, and delve into the military applications and ethical dimensions of technologies like artificial intelligence and quantum science. They also review the Defense Department's transition from focusing on counterterrorism and counterinsurgency to great power competition. Work, now the Distinguished Senior Fellow for Defense and National Security at the Center for a New American Security, explains how Russia and China are developing a range of technologies in an effort to leapfrog the U.S. in the military realm. Military applications of new technologies: "We don't know how AI and 5G and quantum and synthetic biology, we don't know how they are all going to go to work. But they all have the capabilities to provide a step function in the way we fight wars. And the competitor who gets there first is going to have an enormous advantage. This is a time of enormous foment inside the department. The stakes associated with AI: "[T]he competition in AI is a central one in great power competition between China and Russia. AI will reflect the values of the competitors. Whereas we want to protect human privacy, we want to protect human dignity, we want to make sure that our use of AI is ethical and moral and consistent with our laws, an authoritarian regime might not do it that way." On competition with Russia and China: "This is not a time where we can really afford to waste the time we have. We believe that the Chinese and the Russians are really pressing us in the military sphere. They've had 18 years of kind of coming after us while we've been focused on counterterrorism. And so they've closed the gap to an uncomfortable degree.

As legal pressures and US lawmaker scrutiny mounts, Clearview AI, the facial recognition company that claims to have a database of more than 3 billion photos scraped from websites and social media, is looking to grow around the world. A document obtained via a public records request reveals that Clearview has been touting a "rapid international expansion" to prospective clients using a map that highlights how it either has expanded, or plans to expand, to at least 22 more countries, some of which have committed human rights abuses. The document, part of a presentation given to the North Miami Police Department in November 2019, includes the United Arab Emirates, a country historically hostile to political dissidents, and Qatar and Singapore, the penal codes of which criminalize homosexuality. Clearview CEO Hoan Ton-That declined to explain whether Clearview is currently working in these countries or hopes to work in them. He did confirm that the company, which had previously claimed that it was working with 600 law enforcement agencies, has relationships with two countries on the map.

Experts agree that we're headed toward a future where global leadership in artificial intelligence will translate into economic and military dominance. Unfortunately, authoritarian regimes, such as China, have inherent advantages in research and development. The training of A.I. systems requires data -- lots of it. Big data is the oil of the Digital Age and whoever has the most of it -- at the highest quality and at the lowest cost -- will have a comparative advantage. Assembling and using big data sets in developed countries, however, can be complicated, for privacy and legal reasons. For example, the European Union is considering rules giving each individual the right to control how their facial data can be used in facial recognition technology -- which will (probably) slow development.

Of all the emerging technologies that will change our daily lives, none has more transformative potential than artificial intelligence. And AI -- the use of computers to solve problems that would normally require natural, or human, intelligence -- will also have a profound effect on the global balance of economic and military power. It will change how societies are governed and people are ruled. Debates about whether China or the U.S. will dominate the 21st century are thus necessarily debates about who will lead in AI innovation, and whether democratic or authoritarian systems are better suited to that challenge. A new report from the bipartisan National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence contains reason for cautious optimism on that latter question, even as it reminds us that an authoritarian China will be a formidable competitor indeed.