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Suresh passes the Turing test<br>
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<div id="divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font style="font-size:11pt" face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000"><b>From:</b> Governance <governance-bounces@lists.igcaucus.org> on behalf of Suresh Ramasubramanian via Governance <governance@lists.igcaucus.org><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Sunday, November 21, 2021 3:21 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> parminder <parminder@itforchange.net>; governance@lists.igcaucus.org <governance@lists.igcaucus.org><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Governance] How strongly captured by Big Tech is the field of AI research</font>
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<div dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0); background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">I’m asking you a simple question. You say civil society needs a stake in it. I can see where AI ethicists like Frances Haugen very definitely have a stake. What I also see is a blanket
statement rejecting any right for industry or government to have a stake in it, and asking for civil society to step up. Step up and do what and with what capacity?</div>
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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 <governance-bounces@lists.igcaucus.org> on behalf of parminder via Governance <governance@lists.igcaucus.org><br>
<b>Sent:</b> Sunday, November 21, 2021 12:49:51 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> governance@lists.igcaucus.org <governance@lists.igcaucus.org><br>
<b>Subject:</b> Re: [Governance] How strongly captured by Big Tech is the field of AI research</font>
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<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><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 :) ...
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<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><font face="Liberation Sans">List managers, any way such bots can be turned off :) ... thanks, parminder
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<div class="x_x_moz-cite-prefix">On 21/11/21 12:41 pm, Suresh Ramasubramanian wrote:<br>
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<div dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0); background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">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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<div dir="ltr" style="color:rgb(0,0,0); background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">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">https://m.timesofindia.com/india/misuse-of-voters-list-in-gujarat-riots-alleged/articleshow/3541858.cms</a></div>
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<div id="x_x_divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font style="font-size:11pt" face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000"><b>From:</b> Governance
<a class="x_x_moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:governance-bounces@lists.igcaucus.org">
<governance-bounces@lists.igcaucus.org></a> on behalf of parminder via Governance
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<b>Sent:</b> Sunday, November 21, 2021 11:56:26 AM<br>
<b>To:</b> Mueller, Milton L <a class="x_x_moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:milton@gatech.edu">
<milton@gatech.edu></a>; <a class="x_x_moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org">
governance@lists.igcaucus.org</a> <a class="x_x_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 style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">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>
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<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">You ask in the end. "What exactly is the problem being identified here and what is proposed as the solution?"</p>
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<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">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>
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<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">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.
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<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">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>
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<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">To which your flippant response is: "Would we feel better if all the data was being collected and research done by nation-states?"</p>
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<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">Well, no, that is not what we want.
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<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">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>
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<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">No, we do not fantasize. There is real work happening on this.
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<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">I see two ways of doing it - both being actively pursued by many worthwhile actors.</p>
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<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">(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">
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>
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<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">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>
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<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">(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">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>
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<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;">parminder <br>
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<div class="x_x_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: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">Dr Milton L Mueller, Professor</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">School of Public Policy</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0">Georgia Institute of Technology</p>
<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0"><a href="https://internetgovernance.org" class="x_x_x_OWAAutoLink">Internet Governance Project</a> </p>
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<div id="x_x_x_divRplyFwdMsg" dir="ltr"><font style="font-size:11pt" face="Calibri, sans-serif" color="#000000"><b>From:</b> Governance
<a class="x_x_x_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="x_x_x_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="x_x_x_moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:parminder@itforchange.net">
<parminder@itforchange.net></a>; <a class="x_x_x_moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org">
governance@lists.igcaucus.org</a> <a class="x_x_x_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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<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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<b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; color:black">From: </span></b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; color:black">Governance
<a class="x_x_x_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="x_x_x_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="x_x_x_moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org">governance@lists.igcaucus.org</a>
<a class="x_x_x_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>
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<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><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 style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><span style=""><a href="https://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/november-december-2021/the-steep-cost-of-capture">https://interactions.acm.org/archive/view/november-december-2021/the-steep-cost-of-capture</a></span></p>
<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><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 style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;"><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; font-family:"Liberation Sans",serif">parminder </span>
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