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<p><font face="Liberation Sans">I think I may be excused to think
that Suresh Ramasubramanian is a bot that dutifully acts within
60 minutes of my every posting to this list, to trash it,
choosing some random part of my message and aligning it with
some criticism selected from publicly available data :) ... <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Liberation Sans"><br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Liberation Sans">List managers, any way such bots can
be turned off :) ... thanks, parminder <br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Liberation Sans"><br>
</font></p>
<p><font face="Liberation Sans"></font><br>
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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 21/11/21 12:41 pm, Suresh
Ramasubramanian wrote:<br>
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Poor developing country? I’m kind of scared about big data
in this current Indian government’s hands even more than
they currently have access to, which with aadhaar is a
lot. </div>
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Given the uses to which voter data has already been put
nearly two decades back .. <a
href="https://m.timesofindia.com/india/misuse-of-voters-list-in-gujarat-riots-alleged/articleshow/3541858.cms"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://m.timesofindia.com/india/misuse-of-voters-list-in-gujarat-riots-alleged/articleshow/3541858.cms</a></div>
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<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 parminder via Governance
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org"><governance@lists.igcaucus.org></a><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Sunday, November 21, 2021 11:56:26 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> Mueller, Milton L <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:milton@gatech.edu"><milton@gatech.edu></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>
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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
href="https://ourgovdotin.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/revised-report-kris-gopalakrishnan-committee-report-on-non-personal-data-governance-framework.pdf"
moz-do-not-send="true">
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
href="https://datagovernance.org/report/breaking-up-big-tech-separation-of-its-data-cloud-and-intelligence-layers"
moz-do-not-send="true">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>
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<p><br>
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<div class="x_moz-cite-prefix">On 21/11/21 12:08 am, Mueller,
Milton L wrote:<br>
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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.
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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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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.
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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>
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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?
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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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<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="x_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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<div id="x_divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font
style="font-size:11pt" face="Calibri, sans-serif"
color="#000000"><b>From:</b> Governance
<a class="x_moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:governance-bounces@lists.igcaucus.org"
moz-do-not-send="true">
<governance-bounces@lists.igcaucus.org></a> on
behalf of Suresh Ramasubramanian via Governance
<a class="x_moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org"
moz-do-not-send="true"><governance@lists.igcaucus.org></a><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Friday, November 19, 2021 5:21 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> parminder <a class="x_moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:parminder@itforchange.net"
moz-do-not-send="true">
<parminder@itforchange.net></a>; <a
class="x_moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org"
moz-do-not-send="true">
governance@lists.igcaucus.org</a> <a
class="x_moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org"
moz-do-not-send="true">
<governance@lists.igcaucus.org></a><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Governance] How strongly captured
by Big Tech is the field of AI research</font>
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<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>
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<span style="font-size:11.0pt"> </span></p>
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<b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; color:black">From:
</span></b><span style="font-size:12.0pt;
color:black">Governance
<a class="x_moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:governance-bounces@lists.igcaucus.org"
moz-do-not-send="true">
<governance-bounces@lists.igcaucus.org></a>
on behalf of parminder via Governance
<a class="x_moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org"
moz-do-not-send="true"><governance@lists.igcaucus.org></a><br>
<b>Date: </b>Friday, 19 November 2021 at 3:20 PM<br>
<b>To: </b><a class="x_moz-txt-link-abbreviated"
href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org"
moz-do-not-send="true">governance@lists.igcaucus.org</a>
<a class="x_moz-txt-link-rfc2396E"
href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org"
moz-do-not-send="true"><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="">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=""><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="">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="">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>
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<span style="font-size:11.0pt;
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</span>
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