Jennifer Shearer French

Futurist Global Politics

The Coronavirus Opportunity

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If we could turn back the clock on the coronavirus pandemic, what would we do?

Putting aside personal issues, as a global community we could have had a plan in place, ready to test and to treat across the world. We have the technology to create an AI that could have created an early warning strategy to track, trace and treat, on a global scale. To limit transport links to stop spread, to create treatment regimes using effective technologies, to limit the spread of Covid 19 on a macro and neighbourhood level. We live in a highly connected world. What is the reason we are not already on track for a full AI strategy to deal with the three big threats, which are pandemics, nuclear war, and climate change with all of its attendant disasters? Why isn’t the horror being contained, why aren’t lives and whole economies being saved?

“We” is the community that sees itself as global citizens. Then there is another strata: the politicians placing power before all, the anti-vaccers, the racists parading as patriotic citizens, and the rest of the science rejecting individualists with their fists in the air as the innocents around them fall victim to Covid 19. It is a strata system that ensures that no global co-operative strategy will emerge, or would have emerged even if we had known what was about to happen. Yet highly multi-cultural societies such as those in Australia have succeeded in enabling community action to control the virus – practising social distancing, coming forward for testing, people doing what they are asked to do by state and federal governments that are listening to the medical scientists.

So, globally, we have failed to develop modelling and action plans for the three major disasters that directly threaten us, even though we have the means and will to do it. The politicians have pushed the view that coordinated action means developing a sinister Artificial Intelligence type of system that eventually will overtake our system of governance. That national sovereignty is the value that should hold above all else. No wonder politicians in general are a reviled group of people who need to grab more and more power, surveillance capability to use against their own citizens, and divisive rhetoric to stop a unified polity demanding better governance. Is an open-source AI really the big problem here? The three major threats we face; pandemics, nuclear war, and climate change and its attendant regional disasters, essentially remain the subject of endless international negotiations. The UN and WHO have structural issues that constantly prevent transformation. There is no solution in sight. How a country performs in the face of these disasters is nothing more than the sum of the intelligence and ability of individual political leaders, as the responses to the coronavirus pandemic have shown. This model has been shown to be wanting, and many thousands of deaths are silent witness to this fact. Australia and New Zealand have so far had remarkably few deaths from coronavirus, due to the rapid response from public health leaders and politicians to warnings from experts. There is an obvious conclusion to be drawn from this: politicians in general cannot cope with the major threats we face on a global scale. We need to use the technological capabilities we have developed to create science-based strategies that curb the powers of politicians to overturn those strategies. Opposition will always be instructive. Individual rights will always be important, but not as important as human survival on a global level.

Firstly, let us look at modelling as a means to control the response to the big three threats. Modelling is a complex mathematical process that is in development using computer based systems. There are competing models and competing results. Yet these systems have the same level of veracity as computer based systems that maintain aircraft in their flight. Well tested modelling of results of disasters such as global pandemics tell us very accurately what is about to happen. There should be massive investment in modelling capability for the big three scenarios, because without systematic investment, the level of modelling required will never happen. There are other areas that need such modelling to be done.

But let us focus on the big three. Once the modelling is done, what then?

Accepting that it will be ongoing is one step. The second, and highly problematic step, is creating a system where effective global prevention and action plans may be set up. The past (and present) are littered with attempts to create collaborative global governance systems to serve the greater good. The lessons from this are indeed sobering to an idealist.

What has changed is that we have now a set of global ethics, a concept of global citizenship, that sets a base for a modelling and disaster governance plan (because that is what this is). We cannot avoid the issues of power and governance. In the past, efforts at global collaboration have foundered on the rocks of political interference, corruption, and malign interference with data. If there is one thing that a collaborative well-modelled action plan needs, it is transparency and independence. The issues of mission creep need also to be dealt with. When does reform become oppression?

Let us say that we had a globally supported, independent MDG (modelling and disaster governance) plan. How would it work? The rebuild of the global economy that will proceed when the coronavirus epidemic is over should incorporate the global principles that that been fostered by the development of an almost universal internet capability. These include maximising human survival, equality, full internet access, openness and transparency, freedom of expression and free use of cryptography, and protection of children. One would like to add sustainability, both of the environment and the human and other species that occupy our world, but this principle has not yet gained universal acceptance. However, incorporating those principles which have been accepted globally already, would protect the development of an MDG plan. This plan would inevitably involve change, and many global players, both governmental and corporate, would seek to modify the changes in their own interests. The challenges of creating a MDG plan are many, but post-coronavirus, as we confront our changed world, there is an opportunity for all of us to see how technology can work for us going forward, and to demand better. This is the political opportunity of a lifetime. We need to demand politicians who will work on a global co-operative scale, who will put the welfare of people before power, and who understand how this technology works. And if necessary, be able to step back to allow it to work.

The traditional governance structures, the national governments, the hierarchies, the working economies, will still be with us, and in fact would be protected by a limited system of collaborative global disaster protection and management. Given the events that have befallen us, and the ability we already have to do better, the real question is: how can we do better? In failed states and poorer regions the death toll stands to be even higher when disaster strikes. The coronavirus epidemic may be uncontrollable in a diverse roll-call of countries. But as events have shown, we are all implicated.

The real change that needs to take place is the huge reframing of our way of thinking; nationalistic rhetoric needs to be replaced by acceptance of global citizenship and everything that goes with it. Our new mission needs to be prevent, plan, and use the power of the internet, computer based modelling and all the other technologies, to create an MDG plan. If this system leads to better global governance, and acceptance of other elements of independent global governance, then the dire vision of artificial intelligence as a vicious robot will be finally laid to rest. In its place we will create a complex, effective, and controlled means to save lives when the next global disaster strikes. The lessons of the coronavirus epidemic may eventually enable a backdoor approach to addressing the drivers of climate change, by creating a full picture of its future effects. And possibly, this will lead to an integrated plan for a sustainable future. The opportunity for all of us to start working hard for this outcome is with us now, as people all over the world confront the cost of our failure to pick up the tools that we have.

$1 billion AI project needs global ethics direction

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It is a powerful message of hope that tech leaders are investing a large amount of money in an open Artificial Intelligence project to serve humanity.It could literally save the world in the future, if it is ethically constructed and serves the global community in a just way.

That is a big “If”.

Elon Musk aims to develop the AI in a safe way and share its research widely. That isn’t enough. Technical expertise isn’t enough. Although this project, in its conception, conforms to the best guiding principles of the internet, these principles need to be stated. There needs first up, an agreed set of guiding principles for the project, and a statement of what it is going to achieve, as well as how it aims to get there.

The strong impression gained is that the project is at first going to be purely technical, which is a dangerous road already travelled by private AIs now being developed for commercial reasons. This public good transparent AI needs to be different. It needs to state its ethics from the get-go.

As a multidisciplinary researcher based in a computer science department when the internet took off, I saw the need to state the global principles that were guiding it. These are listed in my blog.

My work since has focussed on how to integrate global principles, the internet and its potential, with a global AI and an integrated optimal plan for the world and its species. It is our shared positive future.

This project needs the input of public good intellectuals who understand the internet and its potential. It needs a global perspective and a discussion about what the AI can achieve, that will run alongside the technical challenges of establishing new databases and analytics, alongside using existing ones.

My advice is: Start big. Start bold. And most importantly, start the ethics discussion. This is possibly the hardest part for technical people, yet it is of critical importance.

We Can Run The World Despite Politicians

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Politicians run the world, and we can take a snapshot as to how well this works out for the global good by watching the current international negotiations on climate change.

Climate change is gradually being addressed, but the process is extremely difficult, painfully slow, and incomplete.

And climate change is just one of the problems we face in our global future. What would it be like if we ran the world without politicians? Or kept them firmly within their spheres of influence, rather than allowing them to create roadblocks for global progress due to their particular mindsets. Two words: Donald Trump. He is not a visionary, he is a conservative who would keep the arms industry busy, and the teetering global economic system on its current trajectory. Hillary Clinton is of necessity, a pragmatist. Let us not bother to move on to the list of savage dictators in the world, and the religious extremists.

We need something new, a global plan that is unfettered by nationalist boundaries and posturing. Take a moment to think about how the world could be improved if competing national interests were taken out of the picture. How would we deal with the big problems? Take climate change, terrorism, the refugee crisis, economic inequality : are these problems insurmountable? Clearly, we cannot solve all problems of the human condition. But in a finite, interconnected world with a list of problems, it is clearly possible to start analysing the data to find solutions that are fair and principled, according to the global principles that we already have.

The amount of data we would need to achieve this analysis is huge. And the quality of data we would need to make quality conclusions is just not there. Look at the field of medicine, which is a great leader in the field of gathering quality data, and then analysing it and creating conclusions which are then applied in a global system of scientific medicine. Many lives are saved or improved, and of course many more lives would be saved if the knowledge system was to be applied completely around the globe. It has taken years and huge educational resources to achieve this consensus and quality.

But do we really need this quality of data to make a start? Or can our existing artificial intelligence capability start to sort through everything we have, find underlying patterns and themes, and start to build an integrated global plan? The answer, it appears, is yes. As long as the process is transparent, the conclusions don’t have to be perfect. We need integrated solutions now, not when we have developed our computing and data collection systems in all fields to the highest quality. We need input from the industry to see how this could be achieved.

We need an alternative to politicians, a global plan for global citizens to consider, and to act upon. Politicians are supposed to serve their people.

Their best service now would be to resource the development of a complex knowledge and solutions generating artificial intelligence, with the brief to find global solutions for our most pressing problems. These include climate change, preventing wars, natural disaster management, management of famines, water shortages, mass refugee movements, ending the escalation of arms production, and bringing fairness and equality into our global political life. I call such an electronic creation a “State of Mind.” That is, it sets up a global political system that can exist and guide, but not coerce. It can be chosen by global citizens, and actioned by electronic vote to start a peaceful process of transition. It would be paid for over and over if global conflicts could be resolved without guns and bombs.

What would politicians have to lose? The short answer is power. To create a better world, politicians need to stop spying on and trying to control their own citizens, and instead to give up a little power to an electronic regime that offers rational oversight and a plan. This may not be perfect, but it deals with the reality of global life, rather than historic lines on the map of unsuccessful human governance of our world.

Artificial Intelligence and Global Politics : What are we afraid of?

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We are gaining a more sophisticated understanding of what AI is and how we can relate to it nowadays.

Artificial Intelligence has been called the fine line between humans and machines, and it is probably time for us to assess where that line lies. It is probably where medicine takes its cues: First do no harm. In other words, the interaction between machines and humans has to benefit humans. This is possible. At this stage in development, we can plan, and legislate if necessary, for AI’s to be helpful. Just as, for example, computing technology should never be used for Governments to spy on their own citizens, it should not be used to destroy our world in the name of competing national interests. AI’s should be good global citizens.

We are starting to be attracted to AI’s rather than alarmed by them, and that’s a good thing. But we need to look ahead at their potential. Take a look at look at cars that drive themselves where you want to go, drones that fly where you want them to, friendly shopping AI’s that show you the best places to buy what you want : that’s where we are now.

But it isn’t where we should be. Ai’s have the potential to unlock the global solutions we need for sustainable living on our own planet. Each person can potentially use an AI to do their part in improving our world, with the help of their own global planner. An AI could help us make choices to benefit all of us, could create a global plan that we could all be part of, that we could vote for or against.

This is the real potential of AI’s and the internet, to change our world fairly, rationally, and transparently. Nations, because of their particular structure and tendency to paranoia, would rather spend billions of dollars on nuclear weapons, than spend the money on developing an AI to involve all global citizens in the changes we all need to make. How long would it really take to create an AI that would start to address the complex balancing act of competing interests and compile the data that would show us how to best end wars, feed people, deal with our increasing environmental issues and find a home for everyone? And then assist us to achieve that?

Would it take much longer than it will take to create the next generation of fighter bombers?

The Global Citizen’s Oath of Allegiance

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From this time forward,

I pledge my allegiance to a global State of Mind:

To take on the responsibilities of a global citizen in a global, local, and technological sense.

To create a global State of peace and enhanced democracy within my existing framework of governance.

To support a plan for sustainability of the earth and all its species, to support human rights, and protect the vital political functions of the internet.

The term global citizen is often tossed around by politicians without any understanding of its implications.

Global citizenship is an internet enabled concept that has the potential to create an overwhelmingly positive artificial intelligence, mediated by ourselves. It will create a global future in which our earth will be preserved from the calamities of global warming, nuclear war, conventional wars and the worst consequences of natural disasters.

The Global Citizen’s Oath foresees a future where being a good person involves global political responsibilities. Each person should have a global vote, and adhere to accepted global principles.  It will be our duty to stay informed about how our earth and all its species are to be maintained in a peaceful, sustainable environment, and to commit to a rational plan of action.

It is not seen to be in the interest of the political leaders of nations to advance or support such a concept, even though the leaders of democracies wrestle with global problems. The sharing of power is never easy, and the seeming stability of the present seems alluring, even when it is essentially a fantasy. Global warming and nuclear weapons threatens each of us, and our children. We can all see what is wrong with the world. Now it is is time to visualise how global principles, the great knowledge sharing and processing capacity of the internet, and the possibility of a universal global vote, can all come together to create a global citizenry capable of changing, in fact saving, our world.

Consider: What do you see as the responsibilities of a global citizen?

Hard Science Fiction Poetry: The Ultimate Genre?

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As a writer, if you are looking for something difficult to write, it would have to be hard science fiction poetry.

Why? Because I guess you are using both sides of your brain, there’s no lead in, it has to be intelligent and moving. There’s just nowhere to hide. The poetry of hard science fiction is a genre that should be regarded as an elite literary form, as it should be talking about our future in a way that will engage the spirit as well as the mind. There is some of it out there, hosted online by entities like the science fiction poetry association.

When I was writing my novels I put aside thoughts of genre, though I was hoping to be widely read by people who like thrillers and political fiction as well as science fiction. But what I actually wrote was hard science fiction, that is, work based on science and facts. The people who joined me on Twitter and the “also bought” list told the story. I thought this was great – my readers may not be a multitude, but they are intelligent people. So began my swift descent into the world of genre snobbery, a topic I learned a lot more about at a great session at Sydney Writers’ Festival 2013. Panellists Lauren Beukes, Robert Drewe and Luke Davies talked about writing across different genres. Between them they covered novels, poetry, journalism, novellas, scriptwriting, comics, and stuff I’ve probably missed out.

They discussed the gulf between people who read science fiction, which as we all know is the literature of ideas, and people who read literary fiction, which is also very thoughtful. Their observation was that readers of one genre frequently won’t read the other, because one is highbrow and the other is beneath their notice. Lauren Beukes (scifi/fantasy) thought that everybody should just shut up about it and read across genres, because they all have something to offer. Luke Davies (poet, novelist, screenwriter) confided that he was completely elitist about poetry as the highest literary form. This made sense to me, in terms of purity of language and ideas without constraints of plot or characters.

My conclusion is that the highest form of literature is poetic hard science fiction. This sounds almost a contradiction in terms, but I don’t believe that it is. For example, when I wrote my Cyberethics PhD, I felt as though I was trying to construct something very practical and useful, like a chair. The structure had to be solid enough for someone to sit on, so all the “legs” of the the thesis had to be strong. Then I went ahead and wrote my novels, Mindwave and Survival Year, in which I try to show how these ideas will translate to the real world. Then it felt more like town planning. There are two ways to do this too – the strictly practical, or the extra effort that you make to try and make something that will inspire the people who live there, help them live a productive life. If I had been to this session before I started my writing, I would have tried to write poetry as a starting point towards making my books have beauty, something to transcend the form of a science fiction or political thriller genre novel. As writers we need readers of our ideas to be inspired to change the world, not to just read, and then put down their device.

So I will try the ultimate genre – when I’m ready for the challenge!