A Plea: The Case for Digital Environmentalism—and Other Updates
“All technology is dual use.”
This is a phrase I heard over and over again during my time in the national security community—meaning that all technology, no matter how it's implemented at present, can be used both for good or for ill.
When it comes to managing the risks of technology, then—and digital technologies in particular—this presents us with a deep conundrum: how do we prevent digital technologies from causing harm?
More to the point, it raises larger questions about our relationship to technology itself: our assumption that limitless technological growth is desirable; that new technologies can and should be thought of as fixes to existing problems (whatever those problems may be); that the digital and the physical worlds are meaningfully distinct.
These are all deep and unquestioned assumptions about the role of technology in our lives—assuming, in effect, that because technology can be used to create benefits it will be. The more technology we have access to, this line of thinking goes, the better our lives will be. But these assumptions are causing real world problems that we see every day—in data breach after data breach, in the growing threats to our privacy, in the biases of artificial intelligence systems, and more. And these risks are only likely to grow over time.
All of which is why I’m so excited to be writing about these very issues with Dan Geer in a recent whitepaper for Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology. In our whitepaper, “A Plea: The Case for Digital Environmentalism,” we argue that digital technology, the defining innovation of the last half century, has deep and unaddressed insecurities at its core.
The fix? A new form of what we call “digital environmentalism”—marked by a re-evaluation of our relationship to technology, growth, and innovation, and a broader focus on technology's impact on the environment—which we assert is the only way to bring meaningful change to the digital world.
You can read the whitepaper here: https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/CSET-A-Plea-The-Case-for-Digital-Environmentalism-2.pdf
Dan has been a wonderful co-author over the last few years, and here’s a roundup of a few more pieces that we’ve written together:
Improving Cybersecurity Means Taking More Care with What We Digitize, Harvard Business Review (2019): https://hbr.org/2019/02/improving-cybersecurity-means-taking-more-care-with-what-we-digitize
Flat Light: Data Protection for the Disoriented, From Policy to Practice, Hoover Institution (2018): https://www.hoover.org/research/flat-light
The End of Privacy, New York Times (2017): https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/05/opinion/privacy-rights-security-breaches.html
Over the last few months, I have also spent time focusing on the Digital Future Whitepaper Series, published by Yale Law School’s Information Society Project (and for which I serve as lead editor). We’ve published two fascinating whitepapers recently.
The first, called “The Kill Switch: How Internet Shutdowns Threaten Fundamental Human Rights in Africa and Beyond,” focuses on the growing threat of Internet shutdowns, written by activist and scholar Felicia Anthonio. Governments around the world are using these shutdowns as a way to repress their citizens, to prevent them from accessing information (both inside and outside their borders), in yet another sign that the line between the digital and physical worlds is blurring.
A link to Felicia’s piece is available here: https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/area/center/isp/documents/anthonio_kill-switch.pdf
The second paper, just out this week, is focused on cryptocurrencies and, with the arrest of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried this week and the broader unraveling of the global crypto markets, could not be more timely. The whitepaper, entitled “The Death of Cryptocurrency: The Case for Regulation,” written by Nicholas Weaver, explains why despite years of hype and a largely hands-off approach from regulators, cryptocurrencies have not yet revolutionized payments or other parts of the financial system. Strict regulations, Weaver argues, should be imposed on these technologies without fear of stifling innovation—because, at root, there is no true innovation in the cryptocurrency space to stifle.
You can read Nicholas’ paper here: https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/area/center/isp/documents/weaver_death_of_cryptocurrency_final.pdf
In the interim, lots of newsworthy events have happened in the world of risk and artificial intelligence, some of which has led to me being quoted by the press.
I was quoted by the Wall Street Journal on the impact of a new New York City law focused on audits for AI systems in employment: https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-yorks-landmark-ai-bias-law-prompts-uncertainty-11663752602?mod=article_inline
I spoke to the New York Times about how the cryptocurrency collapse is, surprisingly, impacting the world of AI: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/01/technology/sam-bankman-fried-crypto-artificial-intelligence.html
And I spoke to the Wall Street Journal again when New York City suddenly announced it was delaying enforcement of its AI auditing law this week: https://www.wsj.com/articles/new-york-city-delays-enforcement-of-ai-bias-law-11670966590
Thoughts, as always, more than welcome - and hope everyone has a happy holiday season.