Inside the digital society
David Souter writes a weekly column for APC, looking at different aspects of the information society, development and rights. David’s pieces take a fresh look at many of the issues that concern APC and its members, with the aim of provoking discussion and debate. Issues covered include internet governance and sustainable development, human rights and the environment, policy, practice and the use of ICTs by individuals and communities.
Should we be cyber-optimists or cyber-pessimists about our digital society and its future? Some new thoughts and updates on how I was thinking about this five years ago.
Cultural expression matters to how we experience life, and we need to reflect more on how digital society is impacting it and what that tells us about other changes as well.
As gig work becomes more widespread, a look at how it fits with employment rights and how we should be looking at such relationships between our digital and non-digital lives.
The emergence of general purpose AI will be “the most profound change in human history,” according to the BBC's latest Reith lectures. How should we think through the potential risks and opportunities of all this AI in the coming future?
The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) has come a long way in its 16 years. What is it today, and what should its future look like?
Technology is going to change faster than we can adapt to it or even understand it, and we are already seeing technological change outpace the capabilities of public policy. We need to adjust how we view and decide things so technology broadens our policy options rather than narrow them.
In my keynote speech to the intersessional meeting of the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development, I discuss how our progress reviews of the World Summit on the Information Society must account for how digital society is now inextricably linked to all aspects of global development and crises.
Facebook-Meta's metaverse might be less Toy Story and more like The Matrix. Either way, here are five reasons we need to be cautious about the ethics of such virtual visions.
Climate change and digital society are the two trends that will underpin global development in our time. They interact much more than is being understood or discussed at conferences like COP and IGF.
At the IGF we often concentrate on specific themes which might be technical, like the domain name system, or more generic such as access or cybersecurity. The challenges I’m going to raise today are more fundamental issues that affect the internet as a whole.
Association for Progressive Communications (APC) 2022
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