[ad_1]
SEOUL, South Korea — South Korea, one of most wired-up, logged-on places on earth, has unveiled a “Digital Bill of Rights,” a roadmap, its drafters say, for the development, dissemination, use and regulation of new technologies that are disrupting politics, commerce and culture around the globe.
Officials here, briefing foreign reporters Friday on the effort, say they expect the blueprint that will be made public September 25 will serve not just South Korea but the world.
President Yoon Suk-yeol revealed that ambition during a presentation he characterized as “more important than my speech at the U.N. General Assembly.”
Speaking at a symposium on artificial intelligence attended by academics, scientists and politicians at New York University on Sept. 21, he predicted the Digital Bill of Rights “will serve as the international community’s compass to navigate the era of deepening digitization.”
South Korea will “play its part in establishing global digital norms — including the establishment of an international organization,” Mr. Yoon continued.
An accelerating, expanding digiverse
The world is grappling with both the possibilities and the risks unleashed by new technologies, from big data mining to AI.
Vast stores of data amassed by companies have potentially massive impacts on individual privacy. In the wrong hands, AI can be an ideal disinformation tool, one that can impersonate specific humans’ appearances and voices. There are some who even fear that unregulated AI systems could supplant humanity itself.
Related challenges are technological, commercial, legal, systemic, moral — even philosophical. South Koreans argue they are well positioned to address the critical questions given the country’s top-down and bottom-up immersion in cutting-edge information technologies.
Many of the world’s top electronic component and device manufacturers are headquartered in South Korea, as well as leading computer gaming companies.
Gadget-savvy South Koreans are among the world’s keenest early adopters of new technology and new applications.
But they are also exposed to the digital revolution’s dark side, living under constant threat from North Korean cyber operatives.
Seoul regulators have led the way in the past with ambitious policies embracing the new tech era, promoting the establishment of top-tier broadband and mobile networks.
The bureaucratic guiding hand is strong: Regulators here have managed to set up virtual firewall on the national internet to block out not just content from North Korean media but also all pornographic sites.
Still, the world of AI and other digital advances sometimes leaps ahead of the government efforts designed to control it.
Vice Minister of Science and ICT Park Yun-kyu admitted that he and his colleagues were “shocked” in 2016 when DeepMind’s AI “Alpha Go” defeated the (human) national champion in Go, the ancient Asian strategy board game.
Mr. Park, who briefed the media on the bill’s details Friday, noted that technological shifts have massively altered human society in the past.
“The agricultural revolution led to the formation of nations as people settled down,” he said. “The advent of sailing ships led to mercantilism, and shaped capitalism.”
“Deepening digitization” may be as influential: It will see humans co-existing with robots and AI and will “permeate all aspects of our lives,” Mr. Park predicted.
Hence, he added, “the necessity for a new digital order.”
Drafting a digital constitution
The bill of rights legislation was thrashed out after a “mega study trend” convened in 2021. That examined the latest insights from British and American thinkers, and gathered domestic expertise from the fields of science, industry, administration, civic groups “and all the humanities.”
The aim was to “envision what kind of digital society we will have in the future,” to produce, “convergent policy.”
The study identified four broad changes. Mr. Park explained.
The increasing ubiquity of both industrial and social platforms is driving convergence across all sectors. Task automation is changing the nature of work and the character of the workplace.
Virtualization is shifting ever more activities and industries online, to such digital addresses as the Metaverse. And hyper-personalization enables not just users to selects more personalized services, but affects medicine, education and finance.
The outcome of the study, the new Digital Bill of Rights, is based on five guiding principles. Freedoms and rights; accessibility and opportunity; safety and trustworthiness; promotion of digital innovation; and the well-being of humanity.
The Yoon government draft did not pass National Assembly scrutiny so has zero legal force. It neither mandates nor disallows any actions by companies or individuals.
“Think of it as a constitution that lays the foundations,” Mr. Park said. “It is not a law by itself, but a society does not only require laws, but other norms — ethics, for one.”
However, it calls for five framework acts to regulate AI, the Metaverse, cybersecurity, digital inclusivity and data.
The bill’s principles will provide guidance for subsequent legislation required for each act, Mr. Park conceded. A basic AI law will be passed this year, he said, with digital watermarks potentially being legislated to identify generative AI products.
The society ‘we should have’
The study that preceded the bill sought to “envision the kind of society we should have,” Mr. Park said. For example, automated retail kiosks were found to discriminate against disabled shoppers.
Its broad philosophy may raise eyebrows among free market partisans who fear that the heavy hand of government could stifle innovation. Rather than a “digital winner-take-all” structure, the bill aims for “digitally inclusive prosperity.”
Moreover, it is a national bill while the internet is global — a regulatory gray universe. Many countries have tried to contain and control the internet citizens can see within their borders: China bans virtually all major international platforms, like Facebook to Google, via its famed “Great Firewall.”
“The ideals pursued by the internet collided with national interests,” Mr. Park said. “It is a fact that there is a division in the internet world.”
He expects to share Seoul‘s bill, and its thinking, with any countries that are interested.
“We will cooperate with nations that share our universal values,” he said. “Korea wishes to become a role model for digitization and the Bill of Rights is a token of our willingness to contribute to global standardization.”
Another aim is to ensure South Korea‘s voice is reflected in standards under discussion by global bodies such as the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the U.N.’s Global Digital Compact, he said.
The bill is currently being translated.
And despite the “deepening” of ubiquitous digital technologies, Mr. Park warned that one right must never be overlooked by policymakers: In a wired world, individuals must always have the right to disconnect.
[ad_2]
Source link