Inside the digital society

Artificial intelligence (AI) is one of this year’s hottest topics. Governments and businesses are investing big-time (China’s said by some to be best placed). Wide-eyed consultancies spell out the wonders they foresee ahead (with predictions of big dollars). Androids and robots stalk the silver screen. 

Last week I participated in / facilitated a workshop on Africa’s research priorities for the Information Society. What follows are some thoughts arising.

I’ve been attending the second Internet and Jurisdiction Conference in Ottawa.  This post is not a comment on the conference but on the context for resolving issues that it raises.

I don’t have a Facebook profile.  People ask me why I don’t.  After all, it seems, this puts me in the minority among users of the Internet worldwide.  Answering this question’s made me consider my relationship with social media, and social media’s relationship with our society.  

Twenty years ago, in 1998, the UK Department for International Development asked me to help it ‘determine the value of involvement in information and communication technology in support of its objective of eliminating poverty in poorer countries.’ I’ve just re-read the paper and the presentation that I gave in response to that invitation. They’re a telling reminder of what’s changed a...

Cybersecurity’s become the most important issue for many people working on the future of the Internet.  

A third of the world’s Internet users, says UNICEF’s State of the World’s Children report, on Children in a Digital World, are younger than 18. How they use it shapes their attitudes, behaviour, opportunities, and therefore shapes their futures. That deserves more – and more sophisticated – attention from the Internet’s stakeholders than it gets.

This week's instalment looks at an important new source of evidence on access and use in developing countries.