Apply AIWS Ecosystem at AIWS City: A Model for the Digital Age
Nguyen Anh Tuan
The Digital and AI Age is remaking the world. The issue is whether that remaking will serve the common good. Judging from history, it is a mistake to assume that such an outcome will occur without empowering ordinary citizens. The Artificial Intelligence World Society (AIWS) is such an effort.
In this article, I discuss the need to empower citizens and the steps required to achieve that goal. The article concludes with a discussion of AIWS City, which is a digital city being created as a model for how ordinary people can be empowered in the Digital and AI Age.
The Goal of AIWS
AIWS seeks to create an AIWS Ecosystem that empowers citizens to create value for themselves, for others, and for society through the application of artificial intelligence, digital, blockchain, and data science technologies. It is a sharing ecosystem that rewards both the creators and users of these technologies, as well as an ecosystem that encourages everyone to innovate. It breaks down the hierarchies that traditionally have created unequal power relationships, paving the way to a sharing society. It recognizes the value of every citizen, as well as every citizen’s creative potential. It seeks to promote citizens’ economic wellbeing while also promoting ethical and community values. It aims for nothing less than the creation of a more trusting, prosperous, and compassionate world where people can live more fulfilling lives, materially and ethically.
The foundation of AIWS is the Social Contract for the Artificial Intelligence Age, which was developed by the Boston Global Forum in consultation with leading thinkers and practitioners. The Social Contract has been endorsed by organizations, including The World Leadership Alliance – Club de Madrid, which is the organization of former heads of state and heads of government of democratic countries.
As with earlier social contracts, the Social Contract for the Artificial Intelligence Age is rooted in the rights and interests of individuals, and what governments and other entities must do and are prohibited from doing to safeguard these rights and interests. The AI Social Contract and AIWS Ecosystem envision a world where everyone’s contribution is recognized and everyone has a right to education and ready access to information and technology, where no one is above the law, and where integrity, knowledge, creativity, and honesty are seen as key values in shaping policy and society. It envisions a world where governments adhere to basic values and are accountable and transparent.
The AIWS Value System
Remaking the world as a more humane, peaceful, and secure place rests on promoting the values that will foster that world. To that end, AIWS has created the AIWS Value System as a means of guiding and encouraging individuals to contribute to a changing world.
The AIWS Value System focuses on creative or innovative acts that foster a sharing society. Such acts can take many forms but would include:
– Creation or promotion of innovative ideas and organizations that offer meaningful paths for people’s political, social, economic, or moral development
– Creation or invention of technological advances that improve the lives of ordinary people
– Innovative approaches to art, culture, sport, or entertainment that improve the quality of life for ordinary people
– Voluntary acts – everything from charitable contributions to the granting of access to data – that enhance the lives of ordinary people
– Acts that promote the values inherent in the Social Contract for the Age of Artificial Intelligence
As these examples indicate, the AIWS Value System centers on action designed to help ordinary people and that contributes to the building of a sharing society.
Promoting the AIWS Value System
The AIWS Value System recognizes acts that often take place in the absence of supportive mechanisms. Yet, the creation of such mechanisms can incentivize and facilitate acts of this kind. To this end, AIWS is:
– creating the Global Enlightenment Education Program. This program will aim to inform ordinary citizens about the world in which they live, and how they can help improve it. The program will be dedicated to lifelong learning and the fostering of views that will enable ordinary citizens to be more innovative, tolerant, and participatory. The program will place special emphasis on reaching people in more remote areas who are typically left behind by technological change. The program will also emphasize the contribution that everyone, whatever their location or background, can make to the common good.
– promoting the development of legal systems that protect creativity and innovation and that respect the rights and interests of ordinary people.
– promoting creation of a cultural, social, economic, and political environment that encourages and rewards creativity and innovation; that respects the rights, interests, and abilities of ordinary people; that encourages popular participation in the creation of a more humane world; that rewards those individuals who make noteworthy creative and innovative contributions to the common good; and that recognizes those who, through ideas and action, make significant contributions to politics and society.
– promoting the development of technology systems that support creativity and innovation; that broaden participation by ordinary citizens; that contribute to the digital-age education of these citizens; that give ordinary citizens the means to directly create products and services; that foster meaningful work opportunities; that provide ordinary citizens with greater access to essential services, such as health care; and that suppress fraudulent and other harmful acts that injure ordinary citizens.
Test Model: AIWS City
The AIWS Value System is innovative and, as such, untested for its utility. AIWS will test the concept by creating the AIWS City, which will be a virtual digital city dedicated to promoting the values associated AIWS. We envision it as a community of scholars, innovators, leaders, and citizens dedicated to fostering thought, creativity, and ethical behavior.
The digital platform for AIWS City has been created and the first phase of the project will be launched on September 9, 2021. AIWS City has offices in Boston, Massachusetts (USA); Tokyo (Japan), and NovaWorld Phan Thiet, Ha Noi, and Nha Trang (Vietnam), with plans to expand to other locations at a later time.
AIWS City will include the following components:
– AIWS Home, which is the personal space of the “citizens” of AIWS City. Each citizen will have a “digital home” for their work, innovation, and entertainment. The digital home will have secure computing, data storage, and Cloud service, as well as access to data sets, software programs, and tech support.
– AIWS University, which is a digital-age university for lifelong learning. The university will focus on courses that help leaders, managers, and students understand and apply digital technology, including Artificial Intelligence, cybersecurity, machine learning, and blockchain. It will also include courses designed to give individuals an understanding of the larger world of which they are a part. A signature feature of the university will be its course offerings in leadership, which emphasize ethical, compassionate, team-centered, and socially responsible leadership in the Digital Age.
– AIWS Global Enlightenment Education Program, which was described earlier in this article. Citizens of AIWS City will receive a daily bulletin with information and ideas that can enhance their global understanding and enrich their personal lives.
– AIWS Forum, which will feature lectures by the world’s leading digital thinkers – scholars, innovators, philanthropists, political leaders, artists, and corporate executives. There will also be seminars and discussion groups designed to bring together communities of interest. This Forum will promote AIWS Ecosystem and AIWS Value System.
– AIWS Vint Cerf Museum of the Internet, which is named after Vint Cert, who is “the father of the Internet” and a frequent contributor to the Boston Global Forum and AIWS. The museum will be interactive and trace the history of the Internet, including the contributions of Vint Cerf and other major figures in the Internet’s development.
– AIWS History of AI House, which will display the history of AI and serve as a venue for deliberation on issues relating to AI.
– AIWS Market, which will feature products and services that promote a healthy, ethical, and productive lifestyle. The market will also serve as a small business incubator, assisting these businesses in building their brand and entering the digital market. The market will support the sale of creative and innovative products and services that promote the common good.
– AIWS College Preparatory Academy, which will assist students from developing countries to prepare for and gain admission to high-quality colleges and universities.
– AIWS Innovation Hub, which will serve as an incubator to help firms, inventors, innovators, and entrepreneurs turn their ideas into reality. They will be able to discuss their ideas and problems and hear from experts and practitioners on how to advance or solve them. The Innovation Hub will promote pioneering models that foster social responsibility and will reward their developers through the AIWS Rewards Program.
-AIWS Window on the World, which will provide AIWS citizens with virtual tours of the world’s great museums, concert halls, palaces, public buildings, stadiums, ancient ruins, landmark buildings, and natural wonders. And it will give them opportunities to interact with creative individuals from these venues.
AIWS Rewards Program, which will be an experimental program to test the feasibility of a value marketplace – a mechanism through which societal contributions can be exchanged for goods and services. Based on a cryptocurrency (Crypto-AIWS-Rewards), the program will seek to help reformers, innovators, artists, and others who contribute to human progress but who typically do not receive commensurate material benefits.
Remaking the World Requires Reimagining It
The great question of the Digital and AI Age is not technological in nature. Rather it is the question of what type of society we seek to create through the application of digital technology.
The digital and AI revolution and trailblazing ideas will reshape the world. Like previous industrial revolutions, it will have a transformative effect on the way we live and relate to each other. Like the others, it will be disruptive. Some business sectors will wither, while others will thrive. That is true also of people. With the other revolutions, the outcome was determined almost entirely by market forces, which worked primarily to the benefit of the powerful, typically at a significant cost to ordinary people.
AIWS seeks to ensure that the historical pattern does not become a defining feature of the Digital and AI Age. AIWS is a reimagined world, one where the rights and interests of ordinary citizens are paramount and where action is taken to empower them in ways that enlarge their voice and influence and that give them the agency to help shape a new world. AIWS recognizes that this reimagined world will require concerted action by governments, individuals, organizations, and firms. Each must be a source of innovation, and each must adhere to AIWS standards and values. Together, we can remake the world and usher in an Age of Global Enlightenment.