Gig workers in Africa helped train AI systems for a company that performed work for a secretive U.S. military unit. Many were never told their work could be used for military purposes https://restofworld.org/2026/gig-workers-us-military-appen/?utm_campaign=row-social&utm_source=bluesky
With the #ICANN85 GAC (Governmental Advisory Committee) making full use of a human-generated transcript, it avoids the many bizarre clangers that Zoom AI captions tend to generate, so well worth checking it out. A reminder on how to get back to the start of a live transcript session:
#ICANN85 is underway in Mumbai. I'm following remotely, but on a road trip, so my coverage of this final ICANN meeting before the launch of the next round of new gTLDs could be a bit patchy.
Some wanted the Global Dialogue on AI Governance at the Palais des Nations, where it would been hard for observers to get to, with separate UN badging needed & delegates focused on AI having to shuttle between the Dialogue (Palais) & WSIS Forum (Palexpo). Thankfully that scenario has been averted.
The location of the 1st Global Dialogue on AI Governance has been confirmed: Palexpo, Geneva, 6–7 July 2026, just before the Global AI for Good Summit & in parallel to the WSIS Forum. All three events will take place at the Palexpo.
Webcast archive of today's Melania Trump-chaired United Nations Security Council session now available.
"Altman [...] said the military wouldn't use ChatGPT 4 autonomous killing systems or mass surveillance. But [there's] skepticism by many AI experts, lawyers, tech workers & users, who asked why the US govt would abandon [...] Anthropic, only to strike a deal with OpenAI that has the same safeguards"
Russian delegation includes a pussy bow wearing woman at the UNSC session being chaired by Melania Trump. Coincidence?
Chaos ensued as no delegate was allowed to take phones or cameras into venue. My small rebellion was to use my laptop webcam to take photos.
All planned parallel sessions were cancelled.
Lots of very angry delegates unhappy a president's wife could coopt an int'l meeting to promote herself.
/2
Watching Mrs Trump chair the UNSC session on children & tech is giving me flashbacks to IGF 2009 in Sharm el-Sheikh, when Mrs Mubarak coopted the forum to hold her own last-minute session, "Preparing the Young Generations in the Digital Age: A Shared Responsibility". /1
"Extremely high capital requirements for developing LLMs make [AI governance] multistakeholderism even more fragile than it was in the case of the internet: without billions of $ in processing power, data & talent, there's simply no way to sit at the table as an equal"
circleid.com/posts/ai-the...
I assume (hope) that when ICANN staff are formally back at work on Monday, Los Angeles time, someone with permissions to edit the website's homepage will update the #ICANN85 travel advice news item (currently linking to older 24 Feb item) to link to the most up-to-date announcement (28 Feb).
For anyone flying to #ICANN85 in Mumbai & checking the ICANN homepage obsessively to see if there's updated travel advice but only seeing the big news item that predates the Iran bombing, there's actually updated advice. You just have to scroll down, click "More announcements", then "Travel Alert".
"The only way to prove someone is old enough 2 use a site is 2 collect personal data about who they r. The only way to prove u checked is to keep the data indefinitely. Age-restriction laws push platforms toward intrusive verification systems that often directly conflict w modern data-privacy law"
Wondering what effect bombing Iran will have on upcoming digital policy related mtgs:
CSTD WG on Data Governance, 2-3 March, Geneva
ICANN85, 7-12 March, Mumbai
ITU Council, 28 April-8 May, Geneva
ITU Plenipot, 9-27 November, Doha
a) Flights will be an issue for many
b) Existing tensions heightened
Iran has now been largely offline for 18 hours, with an #Internet shutdown put into place following strikes by the US & Israel. However, small amounts of Web & DNS traffic are still getting through, and IPv4 routes remain available, suggesting some users and sites are allowlisted for access.
Australian eSafety Commission study to follow 4000 kids+families for 2 years to see how the Social Media Minimum Age law's working (or not) & how it impacts kids.
Frankly, I think parental education is key. I know a dad of teen daughters who's perfectly OK with AI nudification apps being available🫤
Yet another reason to always keep humans in the loop ... "AIs can’t stop recommending nuclear strikes in war game simulations. Leading AIs from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google opted to use nuclear weapons in simulated war games in 95 per cent of cases" www.newscientist.com/article/2516...
We are very susceptible to AI manipulation.
"Even when AI tools provide source, people are far less likely to check it out than they were with old-school search results. For ex, a recent study found ppl are 58% ⏬️ likely to click on a link when an AI Overview shows up at the top of Google Search."
AI Impact Summit Declaration, New Delhi (Feb 18-19, 2026) is out.
As of 10 UTC, 22 Feb, "Endorsing countries/int'l organizations" are 87 countries & 1 UN agency: IFAD (Int'l Fund for Agricultural Development).
But you just know it's a bland doc when even the current US administration signs it.
"large language models such as ChatGPT were consistently advising women to ask for lower salaries than men in recruitment processes,... AI tools already in use by more than half of England’s councils were downplaying women’s medical conditions, potentially resulting in unequal care"
Interesting that it's the telco's uncapped roaming charges focused on here and not the fact that social media is designed to be so addictive that a kid preferred to be glued to her phone rather than enjoy the experience of a different country right in front of her.
When you drink your own AI Kool-Aid across your critical infrastructure this can happen:
10/ Pre-Trump, other countries tolerated US dominance because the ideals US proselytized, if flawed in practice, were seen as generally morally/ethically desirable & the basis for a better world.
But today's US ideals are seen as harmful to all but a tiny minority. Not something the world wants!
9/ Whatever the Trump admin does with freedom[dot]gov, it's going to face the same problem. It's trying to control, unilaterally, what the rest of the world sees on the Net. And as we all know, single points of control are inevitably single points of failure...
8/ The Trump admin could invoke Musk's Starlink terminals to bypass any EU restrictions to freedom[dot]gov domains & IP addresses. Localized jamming is possible but can be bypassed. If so, ITU's radiocommunication sector could become the venue for the mother of all digital sovereignty battles.
7/ Instead, freedom[dot]gov focuses on channeling extremist "free speech" to like-minded, white-skinned MAGA types in EU countries, but could fail even in that narrow remit, based on the information currently available about the project.
6/ By centralizing everything via freedom[dot]gov, the US govt removes the advantages the old Internet Freedom program had in supporting grassroots, agile processes aimed at bypassing authoritarian regime's Internet restrictions.
5/ Savvy users will always find ways to bypass specific restrictions. A big part of that is due to the Net being decentralized & govts inevitably being slower at digital whack-a-mole than the combined global efforts of individuals who are agile & "creative" in finding ways to bypass local laws.
4/ If the Trump admin is planning to invoke TOR for freedom[dot]gov as a way to bypass governments enforcing their sovereign national laws to regulate content within their borders, that can be blocked, too.
