AI, and the future of jobs

In a substantive note penned to Sri Lanka's Ministry of Technology - Sri Lanka, and UNDP Sri Lanka responding to what was sadly a performative public consultation on the country's first-ever national AI strategy, I stressed the importance of looking at job displacement because of AI. Address the significant risks, and challenges of AI more …

Inconvenient stories: The potential and pitfalls of narratives in the social media age

In addition to the lecture at Pathshala South Asian Media Institute on generative AI, and photography, Shahidul Alam also invited me to deliver a public lecture at Drik on 6th May. The talk was billed as 'Storytelling as Resistance', but I changed the title of the lecture as delivered to 'Inconvenient Stories'. A video of …

Irreal interplay: Generative AI, photography, & assault on meaning

I was invited by the legendary Shahidul Alam - one of the most influential photographers alive - to give two lectures in Dhaka, including to all the students of Pathshala Institute, one of South Asia's pre-eminent photography, film and media schools. I had a wonderful time engaging with the students, and what was billed as …

Eyes Wide Open: The Christchurch Call at 5

As Christchurch Call enters 5th year, the information environment (globally, and in New Zealand) linked to what it is designed to respond to is far more complicated, and violent than in 2019. One predominant aspect of this is the role, reach, and relevance of Twitter (I refuse to call the platform X). Pre-Musk Twitter was …

Sri Lanka’s proposed Anti-Terrorism Act, and encrypted communications

Since I stick to my subject/domain expertise of, and focus on online harms, I hadn't studied the proposed Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA) in relation to clauses that may impinge on privacy, and the integrity of online communications. Based on how the Online Safety Act (OSA) alone can very seriously impact the integrity of encrypted communications I …

The OSA, and encrypted apps in Sri Lanka

John Xavier - the technology Editor at The Hindu - has a very interesting piece on the future of WhatsApp in India. He notes, WhatsApp sees any government that chooses to mandate traceability as “effectively mandating a new form of mass surveillance. To comply, messaging services would have to keep giant databases of every message …

Feedback on Strategy for Artificial Intelligence in Sri Lanka

A week ago, the Ministry of Technology (MoT) released a draft strategy for AI in Sri Lanka, supported by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to ostensibly “to leverage AI technologies to drive innovation, economic growth and societal progress across the nation”[1]. In my capacity as Research Director at The Disinformation Project based in New …

The proscription of Terrorgram in the UK: Implications for New Zealand

The United Kingdom proscribed the Terrorgram collective on 22 April 2024. It's the first country in the world to do so. As the official announcement noted, The UK is to become the first country in the world to proscribe the Terrorgram collective after a draft proscription order has been laid against the group in Parliament …

Sri Lanka’s Online Safety Act (OSA): The government’s lies, falsehoods, & deception

Musāvādā veramaṇī sikkhāpadaṃ samādiyāmi - "I will abstain from false speech." (The fourth precept from the cardinal Five Precepts, or pañcasīla, of Buddhism) If only because of all the perennial, public, and performative motions of Sri Lanka's polity being led by Buddhism's core values, the government's outright lies around just the Online Safety Act (OSA) …

Ad tech’s and Meta Pixel’s rapacious reach: The curious case of New Zealand

A tweet by Pat Walshe (Privacy Matters) 🐾 alerted me to an article published in The Register, noting that 96% of US hospital websites share visitor info with Meta, Google, data brokers. Everything mentioned in the article adds to research I've led on the use of ad tracking tech - especially Facebook (or more accurately, …