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<p>Milton, happy to respond to substantive points, but disappointed
that you chose to attack this outstanding article on extraneous
even ad hominem grounds. I'd come to them in a different email,
not to distract from main points.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>You ask in the end. "What exactly is the problem being identified
here and what is proposed as the solution?"</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>I thought Meredith had made both absolutely clear. the problem
especially, which is extremely profound and disturbing, and also
her 'solution' (focused on tech employees and academics), which
btw I do not think is adequate.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>The problem is that in a world where AI is set to become a prime
force determining much in all walks of life, it is nearly
impossible to do any AI research without Big Tech weighing down
heavily on it. Whether it be about how our education processes and
content should be determined, to the basis of public health
strategies, to almost everything. I find it incredulous that you
see no problem in this. Meredeth herself points to the time when
military had an extra-ordinary say in a lot of scientific and
technical research, and she calls it a 'dark history' from which
we should take lesson. But then at least even if technologies like
Internet and others were born in defense labs, when theses
technologies and applications entered our lives, these were
mediated by business and others, which meant a useful division of
power in determining the directions of development and use of
these technologies. But today, from framing questions, to research
to application to feedback, it is a single Big Tech captured
system. That, dear Milton, is the problem. It is just that we do
not want commercial logic of a few Big Tech owners to determine
the future of the world and humanity, whether this disturbs you at
all or not. <br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Access to all the needed data, it, along with means of collecting
it, all being with Big Tech is the biggest problem, even bigger
than high computational power, which with the help of public
resources may still be able to be mustered. But all data and its
mining shafts are captive with Big Tech. That is one of the
biggest contemporary problem, and many have recognized it as such.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>To which your flippant response is: "Would we feel better if all
the data was being collected and research done by nation-states?"</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Well, no, that is not what we want. <br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Your next, rhetorically meant ,question is in fact more to the
point: " Or do we fantasize about the large amounts of capital and
data somehow being magically in the hands of "the people"? In what
institutional capacity?
"</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>No, we do not fantasize. There is real work happening on this. <br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>I see two ways of doing it - both being actively pursued by many
worthwhile actors.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>(1) Making many kinds of data sharing mandatory for Big Tech. So
that data they collect from the society is mandated to be
contributed in a social commons that all or many can use. I know
you would consider this fantastical. But India's committee on data
governance framework has laid out elaborate legal basis as well as
practical implementation means for achieving it. (Disclosure: I am
a committee member). <a moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://ourgovdotin.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/revised-report-kris-gopalakrishnan-committee-report-on-non-personal-data-governance-framework.pdf">This
is the second draft report</a>, but the final one, quite a bit
better, will be out soon. But I know how youd treat a policy
document from a poor, developing country like India. So I may
inform you that within a few months EU will be coming out with its
Data Act that will contain some mandatory data sharing provisions.
Apart from it, the EU is working on many projects to ensure sector
wide data availability and sharing, like its GAIA-X project.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>One of the man objectives of wide data sharing through the above
means is to decentralise digital business concentration with a few
Big Tech. It also works the other way which brings me to my second
point.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>(2) Breaking up big tech by various legal means -- employing
platform- dependent actors separation (Lisa Khan and in India's
ecom law) or in other ways ( see for instance our paper on '<a
moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://datagovernance.org/report/breaking-up-big-tech-separation-of-its-data-cloud-and-intelligence-layers">Separating
data, cloud and intelligence layers</a>' ) .... Even the US is
mulling new laws to curb Big Tech's power and ensure more
competition, as are many other jurisdictions. Enforcing platform
interoperability is a good way to break platform power
concentration (we are working on a proposal to do so for social
media platforms to start with, while India's commerce ministry has
a group to develop a platform for e-com interoperability) ... Once
you have a multiplicity of actors and platforms in any sector,
instead of a monopoly or two, it mitigated the problem of data
availability, as well as of concentrated control over AI
research..</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>parminder <br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 21/11/21 12:08 am, Mueller, Milton L
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
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I look at this article and see no measurements or even
qualitative estimates of the sources of AI funding, the share
controlled by "big tech" as opposed to universities, government
civilian research institutes, or by governmental military
projects.
<br>
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All I see are assertions that everything is under the control of
"big tech" - although there are useful notes about how
governments - not big tech - are now pouring money into "AI"
research based on a narrative about geopolitical military
competition. And our project (IGP) has already sounded the alarm
about Schmidt's and the U.S. military's attempt to make AI
research into a "race" with the Chinese. More specifically, they
are aiming at "AI supremacy," a rather scary term in our
opinion, but in that case the source of the problem is
nation-state competition not a demonized big tech.<br>
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<br>
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The author, Meredith Whitaker, ironically, is a former Google
employee and sang a quite different tune when she participated
in multistakeholder IG organizations in that capacity.
<br>
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<br>
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This article may be worth paying attention to, but it's not
research, it wasn't written by a scholar, it's basically an
opinion piece upholding the advocacy views of the organization
Meredith now works for, whose position is that big tech is bad
and should be controlled more by people like, uh, Meredith and
Tristan Harris and Francis Haugen.<br>
</div>
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<br>
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I'd also remind you not to be manipulated by framing. AI is
basically software interacting with large data sets. The idea
that commercial platforms who generate and collect lots of data
and provide software applications and tools to billions of users
are at the forefront of AI research should surprise or shock no
one. It's like saying that EV companies are at the forefront of
battery research. Would we feel better if all the data was being
collected and research done by nation-states? Or do we fantasize
about the large amounts of capital and data somehow being
magically in the hands of "the people"? In what institutional
capacity?
<br>
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Is the message that we are supposed to be against AI research
per se? Or to eliminate big tech companies altogether? Or to be
against "capitalism" because, well, the Chinese Communist Party
does so much nicer things with big data and does such a better
job controlling its tech companies? Is the goal to "regulate"
big tech? If so, how, exactly, and how does that prevent
tech/data firms from being at the forefront of AI research
anyway? What exactly is the problem being identified here and
what is proposed as the solution?<br>
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Thoughts to consider as we prepare to meet in IGF 😉 <br>
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<div id="Signature">
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<p style="margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">Dr Milton L
Mueller, Professor</p>
<p style="margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">School of
Public Policy</p>
<p style="margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">Georgia
Institute of Technology</p>
<p style="margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0"><a
href="https://internetgovernance.org"
class="OWAAutoLink" moz-do-not-send="true">Internet
Governance Project</a> </p>
<p style="margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0"><br>
</p>
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<hr tabindex="-1" style="display:inline-block; width:98%">
<div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font style="font-size:11pt"
face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000"><b>From:</b>
Governance <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:governance-bounces@lists.igcaucus.org"><governance-bounces@lists.igcaucus.org></a> on
behalf of Suresh Ramasubramanian via Governance
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org"><governance@lists.igcaucus.org></a><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Friday, November 19, 2021 5:21 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> parminder <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:parminder@itforchange.net"><parminder@itforchange.net></a>;
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org">governance@lists.igcaucus.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org"><governance@lists.igcaucus.org></a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Governance] How strongly captured by
Big Tech is the field of AI research</font>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div style="word-wrap:break-word" lang="EN-IN">
<div class="x_WordSection1">
<p class="x_MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 10pt;
font-family: "Calibri", sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size:11.0pt">In other words, civil
society needs to work on its own AI, and on AI ethics,
as a multi stakeholder effort. Are you aware of any such
efforts? Or do you plan to launch such an effort?</span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 10pt;
font-family: "Calibri", sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size:11.0pt"> </span></p>
<div style="border:none; border-top:solid #B5C4DF 1.0pt;
padding:3.0pt 0cm 0cm 0cm">
<p class="x_MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; font-size:
10pt; font-family: "Calibri",
sans-serif;margin-bottom:12.0pt">
<b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; color:black">From: </span></b><span
style="font-size:12.0pt; color:black">Governance
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:governance-bounces@lists.igcaucus.org"><governance-bounces@lists.igcaucus.org></a> on
behalf of parminder via Governance
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org"><governance@lists.igcaucus.org></a><br>
<b>Date: </b>Friday, 19 November 2021 at 3:20 PM<br>
<b>To: </b><a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org">governance@lists.igcaucus.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org"><governance@lists.igcaucus.org></a><br>
<b>Subject: </b>[Governance] How strongly captured by
Big Tech is the field of AI research</span></p>
</div>
<p><span style="font-family:"Liberation
Sans",serif">An excellent and eye opening article
in ACM's journal on how strongly captured by Big Tech
most AI research is today. There also seem not many
alternatives on the horizon.</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:"Liberation
Sans",serif"><a
href="https://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/november-december-2021/the-steep-cost-of-capture"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/november-december-2021/the-steep-cost-of-capture</a></span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:"Liberation
Sans",serif">If AI is the future, and everything AI
is shaped by the Big Tech, then public interest actors
of the world have something that must be addressed
urgently..</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:"Liberation
Sans",serif">But many apparently are busy handing
even tech governance spaces over to Big Tech, so nothing
ever comes in the latter's way.</span></p>
<p class="x_MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; font-size: 10pt;
font-family: "Calibri", sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size:11.0pt;
font-family:"Liberation Sans",serif">parminder
</span>
<span style="font-size:11.0pt"></span></p>
</div>
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</blockquote>
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