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The steep rise of an internet-enabled digital economy, led by technology firms with a global footprint, has been historically unprecedented. The questions that seldom get asked are related to the speed and scale of growth of both digital and AI infrastructures, including Platforms. By this, we mean, what are the specific underlying technological and policy frameworks whose presence (or sometimes absence) provide the necessary facilitation for the unprecedented emergence of the digital and AI landscapes.
Certain explanatory elements clearly seem to stand out. Ubiquitous access to the internet and the many tethered devices that allow myriad digital transactions at both speed and scale, along with the generation of vast amounts of data, are perhaps most significant. However, the industry specific circumstances, namely the rapid assembling of technology, both hardware and software, and its ‘successful’ roll out, requires even closer examination. Although digital technologies are arguably celebrated in many quarters, for their ability to increase transparency and accountability, there continues to be considerable opacity around the relationship between governments, citizens and these entities (including digital platforms). This is particularly exacerbated with increasing evidence of ‘unaccountable’ access to citizen data.
How can we begin to ask more deliberative questions regarding the political economy of how various kinds of infrastructures (Platform, Date and AI) are being constituted? What forms of technologically enabled path dependencies are being created with such legacy structures?
Speaker:
Prof. Eben Moglen
Professor Moglen began building software as a professional programmer at age 13. In 1991, he famously represented Philip Zimmerman, the developer of PGP (“Pretty Good Privacy”), who was threatened with prosecution by the US government for making strong encryption free software that everyone could use. In 1993, he joined forces with Richard M Stallman to provide world-class legal representation and expertise to the free software movement. With Stallman, he conceived, wrote, and created a public process for discussion and adoption of GPLv3, the current version of the world’s most widely-used free software license.
In addition to his work with free software developers, Professor Moglen has advised major IT companies and national governments around the world. In 2010, he testified before the European Commission on the FOSS consequences of Oracle Corporation’s acquisition of Sun Microsystems, and before the US Congress on Internet privacy and consumer protection. He has appeared numerous times on software- and privacy-related issues as amicus curiae before the US Supreme Court.
Professor Moglen earned his PhD in History and his law degree at Yale University. After law school, he clerked for Judge Edward Weinfeld of the United States District Court in New York City and for Justice Thurgood Marshall of the United States Supreme Court. He has taught at Columbia Law School since 1987 and has held visiting appointments at Harvard University, Tel Aviv University, and the University of Virginia. In 2003, he was given the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Pioneer Award for efforts on behalf of freedom in the electronic society. Professor Moglen is admitted to practice in the State of New York and before the United States Supreme Court.
[Questions to consider: 1) How are social platforms through their ubiquitous presence, creating a new common-sense? 2) How have such platforms begun to deeply impinge on the social, cultural and political life of nation-based-citizens? 3) Are the strong network effects of such platforms posing significant challenges to democratic rights?]
Speakers:
1) Moderator: Dr. Sundeep Oberoi (Adjunct Faculty, ADCPS, IIT Bombay)
Dr. Oberoi has 36 years of industry, research and entrepreneual experience in diverse areas of Information and Communication Technology. His experience covers a wide spectrum of experience in Delivery Management of large and critical programmes, technology development, product development, business development, system integration and management of research laboratories. He has a Ph.D. in Computer Science from I.I.T Bombay, an M.Tech in Computer Science from I.I.T. Delhi together with a B.Tech in Chemical Engineering from I.I.T. Kanpur.
He was responsible for the establishment of the I.I.T. Bombay – Tata Infotech Research Laboratory in 1997 and was its first head.
He retired from the Tata Group in November 2020 and prior to retirement served as the Global Head for the Cybersecurity Business Unit of Tata Consultancy Services and was recognized as #4 in the top 25 Cybersecurity Executives of 2020 – “The IT Services Report”.
He was responsible for security execution in several large Government of India projects like the AWAN project of Indian Army, Passport Seva Project, MCA-21, security of EVMs and many other important projects.
In addition to his role as Adjunct Professor at the Ashank Desai Centre for Policy Studies at IIT B, he also currently serves as:
2) Ms. Mishi Choudhary (Legal Director at the Software Freedom Law Centre, NY, USA)
Ms. Choudhary is working with SFLC following the completion of her fellowship during which she earned her LLM from Columbia Law School and was a Stone Scholar. Prior to joining forces with SFLC in 2006, she practiced as a High Court and Supreme Court litigator in New Delhi.
At SFLC, Ms. Mishi is the primary legal representative of many of the world’s most significant free software developers and non-profit distributors, including Debian, the Apache Software Foundation, and OpenSSL.
In 2010, she founded SFLC.in. She has divided her time between New York and New Delhi. Under her direction, SFLC.in has become the premier non-profit organization representing the rights of Internet users and free software developers in India.
As of 2015, Ms. Mishi is the only lawyer in the world simultaneously to appear on briefs in the US and Indian Supreme Courts in the same Term. She consults with and advises established businesses and startups using free software in their products and service offerings in the US, Europe, India, China and Korea. In 2015 she was named one of the Asia Society’s 21 young leaders building Asia’s future. In 2016 she was selected as an Aspen Fellow as part of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.
In addition to an LLM, she has an LLB degree and a bachelors degree in political science from the University of Delhi. Mishi is a member of the Bar Council of Delhi, licensed to appear before the Supreme Court of India, all the State High Courts in India, in the State of New York, and before the Southern District of New York.
3) Ms. Anita Gurumurthy (Founding member and Executive Director, IT for Change, India)
Ms. Gurumurthy is Executive Director, Senior Fellow and a founding member of IT for Change, where she leads research on the platform economy, data and AI governance, democracy in the digital age, and feminist frameworks on digital justice.
She actively engages in national and international advocacy on digital rights and contributes regularly to academic and media spaces. She serves as advisor and expert on various bodies including the United Nations Secretary-General’s 10-Member Group in support of the Technology Facilitation Mechanism, the Paris Peace Forum’s working group on algorithmic governance, Save the Children’s ICT4D Brain Trust, and Minderoo Tech & Policy Lab‘s Board. She has several critical publications to her credit.
4) Prof. Anupam Guha (Assistant Professor, ADCPS, IIT Bombay)
He is an AI researcher shifting to AI policy research. He finished his PhD in 2017, from the University of Maryland, in Computer Science. He has worked as an industry AI researcher for two years.
Dr. Guha’s arc of research started as a core AI researcher working in the intersection of language and vision who got interested in not just how humans solve complex problems but also how AI systems work and fail around these problems. This, and insights from his recent work in academia and the (media) industry, especially as to how code precedes policy, and the lens on AI primarily being one of fairness, accountability, transparency (instead of say, labour and capital) led him to develop an interest in AI policy, the interaction of labour with AI, and the political-economy of automation.
[Questions to consider: What are the tensions between privacy and data sharing, between platforms that draw upon a vast pool of private data, their subsequent use and the presence or absence of relevant policy processes (for example, Facial Recognition Technology), between community data requirements and data commons? How can these tensions be negotiated or addressed?]
Speaker:
Justin Sherman
Mr. Sherman is Co-Founder and Senior Fellow at Ethical Tech. He previously served as the Initiative’s President and before that its Vice President, where he led research, events, and policy education programs on cybersecurity, privacy, and artificial intelligence. He is also a fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Cyber Statecraft Initiative, a research fellow at the Tech, Law & Security Program at American University Washington College of Law, a contributor the us at WIRED Magazine, and the technology advisor to the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.) in New York City.
His writing on a range of technology, policy, and geopolitical issues has appeared in The Atlantic, The Diplomat, Foreign Policy, Slate Magazine, and The Washington Post. He is currently earning his M.A. in Security Studies from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service, and before that, he earned his B.S. in Computer Science and his B.A. in Political Science from Duke University, where he co-founded the student cyber program, co-wrote two technology policy classes, and was a fellow at Duke Law School.
[Questions to consider: 1) What are some salient features of how the data brokering industry is shaping, given the presence or absence (India) of regulation? 2) What are specific elements that any ordinary citizen must comprehend given the enormity of data brokering? 3) What are the specific case histories that reveal the strategy of data supply chain models? 4) Going forward, what may be a more effective forms of policy regulation for the data brokering industry?]