On August 21, 2020, Vint Cerf, Father of the Internet, Vice President and Chief Internet Evangelist of Alphabet-Google, was the keynote speaker of the United Nations 2045 Roundtable.
He talked about the need to create a new ecosystem with Internet and AI that is for and serves people, do not abuse or harm humans through advanced technology – that people should be at the center. These ideas of Vint Cerf will be put in the Social Contract 2020 version 2.0, which will be announced September 9, 2020 with Vint Cerf as a co-author.
The Boston Global Forum and Michael Dukakis Institute honored Vint Cerf with World Leader in AIWS Award 2019. He is also a Mentor of AIWS.net.
Professor Thomas Patterson, co-founder of the Boston Global Forum, and AIWS.net, co-author of the Social Contract 2020, spoke at the AIWS Roundtable, co-organized by the World Leadership Alliance-Club de Madrid and the Boston Global Forum on August 13, 2020. He addressed these questions:
Digitization processes in any sphere should include a multi-stakeholder approach, therefore, is fundamental to promote a broad consensus among political elites, companies and citizens for the implementation of digital tools such as Internet voting. This calls for a transparent, involved and participated process, where the relevant actors have a voice. In this context, what role can multilateral organizations play here? How could we generate consensus among the different stakeholders to move forward with digitization in democracy and, especially, in elections?
The spread and penetration of digital technologies has been transforming society and the COVID-19 outbreak and ensuing global health crisis has significantly accelerated this process, imposing rapid and widespread digitalization even in the political sphere. Technology is part of our daily life. We can do numerous procedures electronically such as bank transfers, purchases, etc. However, this modernization in public administration lags behind. What do you think are the causes of this delay in digitizing processes such as voting? How can we use digitalization to make democratic and sustainable environment? (i.e. Digitalization could reduce costs in the Public Administration in the long term and produce investments with these savings in other policies)
“All people can create value for each other. A good economy has an ecosystem of organizations that lets that happen, in the most meaningful and fulfilling ways.”
How can we make this idea happen through using AI and the Internet?
How can we apply and practice this idea?
The Internet plays a significant role in data science and AI, so the History of AI Initiative at Michael Dukakis Institute considers Vint Cerf as a historical figure in AI. At this United Nations 2045 Roundtable, Vint Cerf will talk about historical moments in the birth of the Internet and how to use the Internet and AI to shape bright futures and to create an ecosystem for work and life with the philosophy of the People Centered Economy. With concepts from the New Social Contract in the Age of AI, Intellectual Society-Thoughtful Civil Society, and the People Centered Economy, AI World Society (AIWS) conceives concepts of the AIWS City as applying and practicing the thoughts and ideas of Vint Cerf.
The People Centered Economy: The New AI and Internet Ecosystem for Work and Life
Time: 9:30 am – 10:45 am EDT, August 21, 2020
This is a UN 2045 Roundtable and an event of the History of AI
Keynote speaker: Vint Cerf, Father of the Internet
Speakers: Governor Michael Dukakis, Co-founder and Chairman of the Boston Global Forum, Nguyen Anh Tuan, CEO of the Boston Global Forum
Moderator: Ramu Damodaran, Chief of the United Nations Academic Impact
Discussants: Professor Nazli Choucri, MIT, Professor Hiroshi Esaki, University of Tokyo, Professor Mikhail Kupriyanov, Vice Rector, Saint Petersburg Electrotechnology University, Former Prime Minister Bosnia & Herzegovina Zlatko Lagumdžija, Dr. Chien Minh Le, President of Dalat University,Professor Jun Murai, Keio University, Father of the Internet Japan, Professor David Silbersweig, Harvard University
Agenda:
9:30 am: Opening Remarks, Governor Michael Dukakis
Remarks on United Nations 2045 Initiative, Keynote Speaker Vint Cerf, and discussants; Ramu Damodaran
Keynote speech: “The People Centered Economy: The New AI and Internet Ecosystem for Work and Life”, Vint Cerf
Introduce AIWS City, a model that applies the concept “The People Centered Economy: The New AI and Internet Ecosystem for Work and Life”, Nguyen Anh Tuan
Discussion: Zlatko Lagumdžija, Jun Murai, NazliChoucri, Hiroshi Esaki, David Silbersweig, Mikhail Kupriyanov, Le Minh Chien. Moderator: Ramu Damodaran
10:40 am: Conclude, Ramu Damodaran
The United Nations 2045 Initiative:
The United Nations 2045 is an initiative of the United Nations Academic Impact with collaboration by the Boston Global Forum.
The United Nations 2045 include roundtables, ideas, concepts, solutions, essays, and reflections looking ahead to the global landscape in 2045, when the United Nations completes its first centenary, in areas of these technologies, including artificial intelligence, cyber security and weapons systems, among others. Such a compilation which looks both to the horizon ahead and the role of the United Nations in making it beneficial and secure, would be timely.
The History of AI Initiative:
The History of AI research and explore historical achievements, events, and figures in AI.
The HAI Board is chaired by Governor Michael Dukakis, with Professor Nazli Choucri (MIT), Historian Le Minh Chien, President of Dalat University, Professor Caroline Jones, MIT, Professor Ole Molvig (Vanderbilt University), Tuan Anh Nguyen (Michael Dukakis Institute), Professor Thomas Patterson (Harvard University), Professor Judea Pearl (UCLA), Professor Alex Pentland (MIT), Professor David Silbersweig (Harvard University), Professor Caroline Jones, MIT, and President Vaira Vike-Freiberga, Latvia as members.
The “The History of AI” Board will review and identify historical events, figures, and achievements in AI. After the HAI Board approve them, they will be made official historical events, figures, achievements in AI and posted on the AI Chronicle at AIWS.net. The HAI Board will review and select contents for books and papers of the History of AI.
Following Keynote Speaker Vint Cerf, Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan introduced the AIWS City. Here are some key messages from Mr. Nguyen Anh Tuan’s talk.
The AI World Government was organized for the first time was organized in Washington DC in June 2019 with support of the Boston Global Forum, Michael Dukakis Institute and AI World Society. This year, the AI World Government was planned in June 2020 in Washington DC, but due to complications from COVID-19, it was decided that the 2020 AI World Government would be organized virtually from 28 to 30 October, 2020. AI World Society Innovation Network (AIWS.net) is honored to be a strategic alliance partner and will present the Social Contract 2020 and other new initiatives of AIWS.net at the 2020 AI World Government.
2020 AI World Government provides a comprehensive three-day virtual forum to educate public sector agencies on proven strategies and tactics to deploy AI and cognitive technologies. With AI technology at the forefront of our everyday lives, there are significant efforts already underway by federal agencies to deploy and integrate data-driven government services. In fact, most federal agencies have already begun projects to leverage the rapid rise in availability of intelligent automation solutions. AI World Government gathers leaders from our nation’s strong innovation ecosystem across government, technology, business and research to present the state of the practice and state of the technology to assist in leveraging advanced intelligent technologies to enhance government services.
Join 1,100+ Colleagues at the Largest Independent AI Federal Government Event of the Year!
Complimentary Registration for Government Employees through August 21
On August 5, 2020, State Secretary Michael Pompeo announced the expansion of the clean network to safeguard America’s assets. The program highlights many points that were also from the Social Contract 2020
The Clean Network program is the Trump Administration’s comprehensive approach to guarding our citizens’ privacy and our companies’ most sensitive information from aggressive intrusions by malign actors, such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Today, I am announcing the launch of five new lines of effort to protect America’s critical telecommunications and technology infrastructure.
These programs are rooted in internationally accepted digital trust standards and built upon the 5G Clean Path initiative, announced on April 29, 2020, to secure data traveling on 5G networks into U.S. diplomatic facilities overseas and within the United States.
The five new lines of effort for the Clean Network are as follows:
Clean Carrier: To ensure untrusted People’s Republic of China (PRC) carriers are not connected with U.S. telecommunications networks. Such companies pose a danger to U.S. national security and should not provide international telecommunications services to and from the United States.
Clean Store: To remove untrusted applications from U.S. mobile app stores. PRC apps threaten our privacy, proliferate viruses, and spread propaganda and disinformation. American’s most sensitive personal and business information must be protected on their mobile phones from exploitation and theft for the CCP’s benefit.
Clean Apps: To prevent untrusted PRC smartphone manufacturers from pre-installing –or otherwise making available for download – trusted apps on their apps store. Huawei, an arm of the PRC surveillance state, is trading on the innovations and reputations of leading U.S. and foreign companies. These companies should remove their apps from Huawei’s app store to ensure they are not partnering with a human rights abuser.
Clean Cloud: To prevent U.S. citizens’ most sensitive personal information and our businesses’ most valuable intellectual property, including COVID-19 vaccine research, from being stored and processed on cloud-based systems accessible to our foreign adversaries through companies such as Alibaba, Baidu, and Tencent.
Clean Cable: To ensure the undersea cables connecting our country to the global internet are not subverted for intelligence gathering by the PRC at hyper scale. We will also work with foreign partners to ensure that undersea cables around the world aren’t similarly subject to compromise.
The AIWS Social Contract has concepts to protect democracy in AI and digital technologies and business.
At the same time, the US should update its own privacy laws. This should not simply be a national security battle with China. The broader goal should be to strengthen fundamental rights and democratic institutions and support the Social Contract 2020.
Professor Thomas Patterson, Harvard Kennedy School, Co-founder of the Boston Global Forum and AIWS.net, is co-author of the Social Contract 2020, A New Social Contract in the Age of AI.
He recently posted his writing in the Opinion Section of Boston Globe, July 27, 2020 with title “The GOP’s moral trap”.
He wrote:
“The Republican Party has shattered the longstanding norm that political power should be used with restraint rather than weaponized and taken to its lawful limits. It’s about to pay the price.
Democracies depend on norms — unwritten rules about how leaders and citizens should behave. One norm is forbearance — the idea that political power should be used with restraint rather than weaponized and taken to its lawful limits. Such norms have little standing in today’s Republican Party.”
In preparation for the Policy Lab, WLA-CdM and BGF will be organizing a series of preliminary online roundtables that seek to fuel and enrich deliberations within the Policy Lab. The first of these roundtables took place on 12 May, 2020, and focused on the deployment of digital technologies in response to COVID-19 pandemic, and their implications on privacy rights.
A second online roundtable on Digital Technologies, Elections and Democracy in times of the COVID-19 pandemic will be held on August 5, 2020 and analyse how digital technologies can contribute to protecting democracies and guaranteeing free, fair and transparent elections in times of global emergencies.
In the present COVID-19 context and from a democratic perspective, the development of a new Social Contract on Digital Governance and Artificial Intelligence acquires renewed relevance as the imperative of improving preparedness and government responses to global crises becomes ever more evident.
These policy discussions are part of the Multilateralism and Global Cooperation track of WLA-CdM’s 2020-2022 Programmatic Strategy. They will serve tobring the digital transformation angle into WLA-CdM’s 2020 Policy Dialogue on ‘Multilateralism that delivers’ and, through the latter, to our contribution to the UN75 process and global discussions on the much needed reinvigoration of the multilateral system.
In preparation for the Policy Lab, WLA-CdM and BGF will be organizing a series of preliminary online roundtables that seek to fuel and enrich deliberations within the Policy Lab. The first of these roundtables took place on 12 May, 2020, and focused on the deployment of digital technologies in response to COVID-19 pandemic, and their implications on privacy rights.
A second online roundtable on Digital Technologies, Elections and Democracy in times of the COVID-19 pandemic will be held on 28 July 2020 and analyse how digital technologies can contribute to protecting democracies and guaranteeing free, fair and transparent elections in times of global emergencies.
Objective of this event:
To contribute to the global discussions on how digital technologies and Artificial Intelligence can promote stable democracies in times of global crises.
To collect ideas for the Social Contract 2020 version 1.0 launched on May 2020.
Due to social distancing measures, we have decided to organize a virtual conference instead. The key content of this conference is “The Social Contract 2020: A New Social Contract in the Age of AI”
There are 20 former presidents and prime ministers that will join together with distinguished thinkers, legislators, and business leaders.
The magnitude and relevance of the COVID-19 pandemic has, naturally, upended original plans for Policy Lab on Transatlantic Approaches to Digital Governance: A New Social Contract in the Age of Artificial Intelligence which was originally designed to take place in the Spring of 2020. However, this initiative is now more important than ever as we seek to engage in multi-stakeholder discussions on the interaction between artificial intelligence/emerging technologies and measures/policies adopted by governments, international organizations, companies and society in times of global crises such as the one spawned by COVID 19.
The spread and penetration of digital technologies has been transforming society, the way in which we work, communicate and participate in different public and private spaces for some time now. The COVID-19 outbreak and ensuing global health crisis has significantly accelerated this process, imposing rapid and widespread digitalization even in the political sphere.
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen online party meetings and even parliamentary sessions conducted via videoconference. We have also been able to verify the complexity of adapting certain governance interaction to a virtual format due to internal public administration rules and regulations Likewise, we have seen an increased interest in moving even voting online with a clear consciousness and concern over the opportunities and risks that this would entail in the context of elections.
