Conform or #Cancel
The Stark Binary of Our Digital Future
The conflict in Ukraine has indubitably demonstrated what some nations have been warning about for years: that all systems and platforms are driven at their core by the politics and mores of their masters. Did the past year witness the final indictment of technology neutrality?
Countries and collectives the world over are working to reforge the channels along which technologies and data flow, challenging global digital incumbents. More importantly, decision makers at the regional, national, and sub-national level are beginning to interrogate what we implicitly accept as the “right” narrative on our relationship with technology. Just as nations seek to diversify and build resilience into supply chains, the landscape of ideas must be made robust through the questioning of dominant narratives and facilitate meaningful choice in the digital realm.
CyFy 2022 will gather thought leaders, policymakers, technologists, and civil society to examine the narratives and currents marking our relationship as individuals, communities, states, and enterprise with new and emerging technologies. The aim through the range of formats at the conference is to engage in critical foresight to shape policy, normative, and systemic responses to both established trends and signals of change.
Once confined to a small circle of technologists, the technologies and ideas underpinning the internet of everything—the seamless integration of the real with the virtual—are rapidly being realised. From the Swiss “trust chain” and digital renminbi to XR technologies and planet-scale AI, governments and enterprises are embracing these innovations at an unprecedented pace. Are our financial systems, economies, and livelihoods at the precipice of a paradigm shift, and are we prepared? Or do these new technologies simply entrench existing structures and problems thereof? Will the current geopolitical climate give rise to fractured ecosystems, and do we need a “Digital Bretton Woods” in preparation for the fifth revolution?
We must navigate a virtual world which is morphing faster than our understanding of its impact on layered identities and self-determination. In the collision of sovereignty and globalisation over the digital sphere, is responsible and meaningful citizenship impeded or empowered by national laws? Can we apply the same universal human rights from past decades to online spaces, or do we need a new charter of digital rights? What values are implicitly embedded in our current conceptions of digital rights and do they represent the interests of society’s most vulnerable groups? Are algorithms contributing to the ‘flattening’ of identities?
Information technologies have opened up a new battlefront, one which cannot be treated as separate from the four ‘traditional’ dimensions of warfare. Cyber, robotics, AI, and quantum have also confounded older frames of strategic balance. Disinformation campaigns and other forms of social engineering have further blurred the lines between conflict and the daily lives of ordinary civilians. Conflict has never been the sole domain of states, but the scope and depth of harm of future battles must be considered as we develop tools and rules to govern them. Will technology make conflict more efficient or more cruel?
Since time immemorial, those who controlled the routes and channels through which goods and information travelled have held sway over entire peoples and nations, whether through rules, ideologies, or control over strategic assets. The latest iteration of this phenomenon is testament to the complex nature of connectedness today, encompassing data, technology supply chains, digital services, down to the very backbone of the internet that runs under our oceans. What strategies have different geographies embarked on to manoeuver these bottlenecks and dependencies? Are digital public goods essential strategic assets?
For nearly a decade and a half, the International Space Station (ISS) has been a beacon of cooperation against all odds, toward human progress. Russia’s likely exit from the ISS is emblematic of some of the biggest challenges in space governance today. Even as challenges mount—whether they be in the form of space debris, space traffic management, the explosion of new actors including industry players, an arms race, and counter-space capabilities—governance processes have reached a deadlock. Can we instil new energy towards the peaceful and sustainable use of space?
Chair in emerging technologies and national security, Director of the Digital and Cyberspace Policy program, Council on Foreign Relations, USA,
Senior Expert, Chancellery of the Polish Prime Minister and Delegated National Expert to the European External Action Service, Belgium,
Head, Geopolitics of Technology programme, French Institute of International Relations, France,
Associate Fellow
Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology Observer Research Foundation
Director, Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology (CSST)
ORF