Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-2014

Publisher

Centre for International Governance Innovation

City

Waterloo, Ont.

Abstract

Generative AI has taken the world by storm — and caught regulators everywhere by surprise. In a matter of months, technology once confined to a specialized domain has now permeated the daily lives of ordinary users and become interwoven with our routines and activities. Yet there are no coherent guardrails in place, no user-friendly manuals and no standards or regulations, neither national nor global. The ungoverned and growing ubiquity of generative AI is similar to, and just as troubling as, that of the large digital platforms that play an important role in the work and personal lives of countless individuals worldwide, facilitating access to diverse information, communities, cultures and services. These platforms’ business models rely on advertising revenue, which is dependent on user data fulfilling the role of “product” or “commodity,” while advertisers occupy the position of the “consumers.” The input provided by these billions of data “producers” is derived from numerous undisclosed sources, including covert tracking of their interactions on digital platforms, surreptitious surveillance of their conversations, pervasive monitoring of their activity across platforms, and even the acquisition of their biometric data through immersive virtual reality games, just to name a few. These practices often find “justification” through opaque consent or terms of service agreements, further complicating this intricate landscape.

Comments

"Policy Brief No. 7 — February 2024"

"This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. For re-use or distribution, please include this copyright notice."

Download

Request a copy that is accessible using assistive technology (link opens in a new window)

Share

COinS