Compiled by Athena Smith.
Articles
Citizens’ Assemblies in AI Governance: An Interview With Audrey Tang
Kevin Frazier interviewed Audrey Tang about the use of citizens’ assemblies in artificial intelligence (AI) governance. Tang argued that assemblies should name up front who must act on their recommendations, and that frontier AI labs should fund community evaluations and publish how they handle public input. Tang also explained that although AI can automate clerical work, substantive work—the recruitment of participants, decision-making, and the response to an assembly—should be handled by humans.
Lawmakers should regulate outcomes rather than the specifics of today’s models, and that is precisely the layer where an assembly can make a difference. Which outcomes a community wants, where a data centre may be sited, who must answer when a system fails: these questions do not change every week. A model version changes in weeks. The values and the tests a community sets for it should hold for years and be revised on purpose. Deliberation is slow in the way a constitution is slow.
A Case Study in Pivoting: Investigating Hacked and Leaked Data on a Budget
Ceren Fitoz described how her team at the University of California, Berkeley’s Human Rights Center analyzed six terabytes of leaked internal Mexican military emails for an investigation into the targeting of journalists and human rights defenders. Fitoz illustrated how despite limited resources and technical setbacks, the group examined this data using network analysis tools; patterns in the military’s emails, signatures, and file paths; and an AI-designed search tool.
The takeaway here for any human rights research group or investigative team is to take the theory and put it into practice as much as possible; to try to handle complicated data problems, even when the team is learning as they go, as we did.
Our work is driven to expose the use of digital technologies in grave human rights violations. As bad actors harness sophisticated tools such as zero-click spyware or mass surveillance, we need human rights research to match the pace and creativity of these technology-enabled crimes. This investigation shows what we accomplished with little infrastructure; imagine what is possible with the right investment.
Podcasts
** Lawfare Daily: ‘Crossing the Red Line’ in Gaza with Akbar Shahid Ahmed:** Tyler McBrien sat down with Akbar Shahid Ahmed to discuss Ahmed’s new book “Crossing the Red Line: Biden, His Advisors, and Israel’s War in Gaza.” The two discussed the top officials in the administration who drove President Biden’s Gaza policy, how the war quickly became a moral and strategic disaster, and what the heavy civilian death toll might augur for the future.
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