LIVE from Paris Peace Forum: Embracing technology to protect democracy | Global Stage | GZERO Media

[Music] a [Music] n [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Applause] [Music] a [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] a [Music] [Applause] [Music] ah la n [Music] a [Music] n [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] a [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I'm Ian Bremer president of Eur Asia group and g0 media and I'm Brad Smith Vice chair and president of Microsoft our Global stage series gives gives you a front row seat at some of the most important Gatherings around the world from Davos to Munich to the UN General Assembly in New York and we host critical conversations about the biggest challenges the world is facing right now at the intersection of Technology politics and Society you'll hear from public and private sector leaders and innovators on topics like cyber security climate change and ongoing war in Ukraine join us for live streams podcasts and more throughout the year head to gz media.com Global stage and learn more bonjour hello and welcome to a special gz live stream coming to you from inside the famous P Bron site of the 20123 Parry peace Forum I'm Julian p a journalist for the French public service and my field of expertise is fake news and disinformation today's program is part of gz's global stage series produced in partnership with Microsoft the theme of our discussion is embracing technology to protect democracy and first of all I wanted to share with you a figure I found personally especially eye openening according to the Integrity Institute there will be as many as 83 elections in 20124 across 78 countries that includes critical votes in the US in the European Union Taiwan India just to name a few and these elections are happening in a very difficult context Wars in Ukraine and the Middle East the inreasing tension between the US and China and clearly a decline in trust in both governments and the media the peace Forum launches a call to find common ground at this time of great tensions and so we find it especially important to examine how that can happen also in cyers space how can we collaborate more and fight less I'm joined today by a panel of leaders from politics private sector and journalism Ian bremmer is the president founder of Eurasia group and G Z media Maria ressa is co-founder of and CEO of rler and recipient of the 2021 Nobel Peace Prize for her work protecting freom of expression in the Philippines Brad Smith is vice chair and president of Microsoft and eleonor carwa is Vice President of the French parliament's Foreign Affairs committee so welcome to you all I'm very happy to be with you today um and I want to start with a question that the gz team asked to its followers on social media and that question is is democracy getting stronger or weaker globally and that's how the audience voted getting stronger 8% getting weaker 77% no significant change 10% unsure 5% I see you taking a picture of the of the poll because obviously that's shocking right what what how would you have voted yourself uh defin definitely on getting weaker we've been seeing this trend over the last I'd say 17 years that's you know um and hand inand with democracy getting weaker you're also seeing increased attacks against journalists you know it's not just harassment intimidation it's killings it's it's jail um it's censorship disinformation actually attacking you would all be that pessimistic um I think it' be interesting to ask if it's getting weaker or it's getting much weaker there's a question momentum um I mean it's so interesting because you look at the backdrop of the Paris peace forum and you talk so much about the US China relationship and actually from a Power Balance perspective now everyone's asking about is have we hit Peak China is China ever going to be the largest economy in the world they've got demographic challenges all these things but if you look at the issue of political viability and legitimacy and how systems are doing it is democracy it is the United States in particular which had been you know the world's leading exporter of democracy and people around the world starting in my own United States and looking in from other countries are saying we we don't know that this system as it stands today is fit for purpose but you you see everything from I guess an American perspective obviously at first um and the China us competition is like a huge problem but if you take the the world globally is that that simple I mean let's go ahe it's not that simple but I first I thought Ian was going to spark a contest who can be the most pessimistic of all he won he won he got it but no I I I think it's such an interesting and important question and I was in Finland on Monday if you look at countries in traditional military terms which country in the world is the most capable at defending its borders against a traditional military threat most people would say oh the United States is stronger than Finland but if you ask a different question and it's fundamentally the question you're asking here what countries are the strongest in defending say their political system their elections the Democratic process I think Finland is probably stronger than the United States I think Europe is probably stronger than the United States States and then it really forces you to think about where are the threats coming from they're coming from the outside in part and I would say Russia is a bigger threat right now than China as we looked at 2024 and threats to say elections from foreign-based propaganda disinformation but you also have to look at other factors where is polarization making it more difficult to sustain a country where is there less resilience in the form of of having an educated public that has learned how to evaluate information more critically what is the state of Journalism not just first as Maria points out to withstand attacks on journalists and their freedom but also where is journalism itself less healthy economically yes so you have a different picture and I think we have to put that picture bet together better than we traditionally have well I think it's pretty similar to what we experienc in Europe unfortunately know yeah no I would I would have been interested in in a following question how do you feel about it democracy is getting weaker but what does that provoke to you do you feel do you feel protected in an undemocratic regime because that's what worries me is not only the fact that democracy is actually um getting weaker but is that more and more people seem not to care about or to actually be um Desiring um to you know give up some fundamental rights um in exchange for more Security in exchange for for a prediction of what will happen and and that it's at the same time the the the the strength of that and and the and the very um all the problems that this poses is what strikes me more than the fact the problem is that nobody cares that's even more frightening than the results of this poll well people are made insecure by this issue I mean in an environment of disinformation authoritarian states can tell their citizens what to believe they know what to believe the space is made very clear there are penalties for not believing those things in democracies you increasingly don't know what to believe what to believe is become tribalize and makes you insecure so the very Foundation of democracies becomes a vulnerability in an environment of maximal disinformation yeah yeah sure you wants to react on that yeah well that's the core it's the core right the core now is that if you corrupt the information ecosystem I don't know if if it's the same way I became a journalist because information is power right and in the past we were liable we protected the public sphere uh except now technology Brad you should jump in here but technology has taken over is The Gatekeepers to the public sphere and they've largely AB actually they have abdicated responsibility when lies spread six times faster than facts that's from 2018 and with Elon Musk taking over Twitter now called X you know it's and we're seeing this play out with war happening in the Ukraine in in Gaza right so we're being insidiously manipulated the what used to be advertising and marketing platforms have been exploited by geopolitical power Russia I mean let's talk about Russia's impact on the election right to talk about it right but but I mean I I'm just saying that Insidious manipulation when the tech is a behavior modification system when we do not have agency journalists are under attack our standards and ethics prevent us from fighting back in a way that the platforms demand and let's let me bring it to Tik Tok because then we can go to to to generative AI which is the next step for election Integrity talked about AI later on in okay all right all right I know I know sorry like about it first first let me show you an interview that was recorded by G media they talk to the director general of the Parry peace Forum justan V about the key themes and issues of this Gathering and here is what I had to say the idea is that beyond the north south gap which is another big element structuring the International System not just east west but also so north south and the Paris peace Forum has always been devoted to uh you know being a place where you can mend or where you can improve north south relations um we're trying to get all the different actors east west north south to work on the same uh issues and to make progress where they have common interests because that's the Paradox of it all is that we focus on competition and and and you know geopolitical rivalry uh while we forget the uh the the iceberg coming our way when we fight on the deck of the Titanic there are parts of the world that have clearly moved Beyond rivalry and into allout war and I'm just sort of curious as you begin a peace Forum how that's coloring conversations and the way that you're framing this uh it's it definitely gives uh unfortunately a very Bleak context uh so so from the start the Forum was always focused on the long-term questions on you know crafting peace for the future rather than intervening on hot crisis is like the one in uh in Gaza today or Ukraine a year ago this said uh we don't ignore those crisis and we do what we can and what we can we have to admit is limited it's limited because we can mostly do humanitarian work and so U on the November 9 Thursday November 9 uh we have this humanitarian conference on Gaza that President Macon has convened in the context of the Paris peace forum and then uh the next day when the Forum opens we'll also have uh a discussion between um Civil Society from Israel and from Palestine uh that we hope will at least spark a few u u I would say a few glimmers of Hope of uh uh of getting somewhere in terms of Peace because we know how much the two-state solution has been receding uh on the horizon in the last 10 20 years and how much we still need to have some kind of a Horizon uh to address the Palestinian question Beyond kinetic Warfare the world is obviously at a an apex in terms of cyber and I'm curious cyber has always been a big Focus for this forum how do you view the relationship between cyber security and peace globally you're right from the start which is Forest 2018 uh which was the Centenary of World War I when we uh C celebrated commemorated the uh the Armistice we launched very early on the Paris call for trust and Security in cyberspace which is a huge platform uh of uh various actors about a bit more than 80 governments more than 700 companies uh 300 Civil Society members uh local governments and others working on Norms for cyber security so you know obviously uh We've not solve the issue we still have cyber security issues uh but I think it contributes to uh advancing on uh rules of war or rules of aggression because we know even in Wars There Are Rules uh uh applied to the Cyber domain what the Paris call did was to uh have working groups have a number of principles uh and so this year for example we're focusing on Cyber mercenaries trying to get probably in the winter or in the spring uh uh to a common uh text or a common position on the employment or the non-employment ideally of cyber mercenaries that we know are key to the Cyber Wars and these Cyber Wars uh in turn are part and parcel of current conflicts you were mentioning uh kinetic operations well cyber has become part of these kinetic operations we saw it in Ukraine we saw it uh uh in at the very beginning of uh the uh uh uh terrorist uh uh acts of Hamas on October 7 uh and so regulating uh this is trying to um uh inject uh norms and and and uh and rules of the road uh uh in cyber uh uh in the Cyber domain also contributes to the larger uh purpose of Peace so we're on the deck of the Titanic I mean we're not the less optimistic here right he talks he talked about the Paris schol in um 2018 can you explain what it is and if it had the result it achieved actually Justin just did in the in the video so I'm not going to repeat what he said but it's it's a very ambitious call that was launched pretty much with the Forum in 2018 and um the idea was to have an agreement of a sort of Common Ground between not only States but also um the the different M stakeholders multinationals Civil Society Etc to say well we don't only have to protect citizen in real life we have to protect them in the cyber space we need to address these issues because what happens online can actually turn into real attacks and we've seen that unfortunately we've seen it in France with a terrorist attack that occurred um a couple of weeks ago against a professor which we know happened from an online threat and we've seen since um the the October 7's attack um thousands of what we call the pharaoh's um signalment which is when you actually signal a hater content online that can actually have an impact then in your life so so we see this we see that there's an imp an implication between what happens on the cyber space and uh what happens in real life and I think this call as all these International instruments will not have the results you know the the tangible results we would hope but at least it sets a ground a common ground and we have seen in the past years um legislation that has been enforced in France including two um two laws this year and I'm really happy about it and also in the EU so things are happening and I think you know being in a sort of leading position in terms of regulating um the the internet which is a massive task and there again the the Titanic um the Titanic metaphor comes into place but I think we have to have that ambition yeah and because we're on the Titanic so let's talk about foreign intervention of uh you know foreign powers try to intervene in elections now we we know that in the US election people tend to forget that it happened in France as well in Canada um should we be afraid that will they manage at some point to turn an election uh I I think the biggest danger to the United States is internal not external um Bill Burns the director of the CIA incredibly well respected has testified repeatedly on this issue uh the Russians the Chinese the Iranians all countries that Brad and his team have spent a lot of time looking at what their capabilities are what they've done historically what we can expect them to do in 2024 but the amount of money resource that they will put towards this will be oriented towards the massive divisions that already exist in the United States it's the lack of resilience it's the lack of trust it's the lack of legitimacy it's the fact that our expect our base expectation for 2024 a lot of Elections happening 2024 by far the most important is in the United States it's the most powerful country it's a big democracy and and no matter who wins the losers the losers are not going to respect the outcome this is far less of a problem in France not because you don't have polarization no not because you don't have polarization in France but because you have the European Union that actually does constrain just how much independent sovereignty is going to matter in the United States you get it wrong at the federal level there ain't anyone on top of that right that's what we're looking at I agree and disagree with Ian I mean I disagree in the sense that the reason why the United States is in the place that it is at is we have had years of intense um exploitation of the vulnerabilities of the tech platforms and that has literally I mean you see it with black lives matter you see it with the with the data that was released by the Senate intelligence Committee in 2018 you know that was meant to pound open the fracture lines of of any society including France right I mean France um in 2017 Facebook took down 30 to 50,000 fake accounts they didn't do that in the Philippines but but now what we're dealing with is uh is the impact of years and years and years of this Yuri andropov who was the former KGB chairman he said disinform Maia he said this is his quote and it's playing out as the way it's supposed to he said disinform Maia is Like Cocaine you take it once or twice you're okay but if you take it all the time you're a changed person we are all changed people and that is part of the reason democracy all Titanic sniffing C I know what could possibly go wrong what could go wrong Brad what could we do on the technological side because I guess you're getting better at spotting this kind of disinformation but the bad guys are also getting they're also getting better right I think we have to start by putting this in context if you talk about the United States for a moment since we are you know it's a country where people have so much in common but spend all their time talking about what divides them it's a country where there is this constant sense I think many times fed by Russian propaganda from the outside that is about undermining trust undermine trust in government undermine trust in all centers of authority undermine trust in the news in all information all of that I think has created the society that as Ian said doesn't have resilience the way we would hope so now we have an election and I think we should absolutely assume that the Russian strategy will be to concentrate resources and feed all of that even further now interestingly enough we do have a greater capability technologically to identify say when there is this disinformation coming from the outside what we lack is a consensus about how to use that information do we want companies to report it do we want if there is say a deep fake of a political candidate do we want Tech platforms to take that down that would be censorship would we prefer instead that they relabel it so that people would know that what they're seeing is in effect a forgery and that's the biggest concern I have going into 2024 not that we won't be able to spot it but we don't have an agreement about what we should do about it that's perfect because that's where we are right the PE forum and I think that's to find common ground is the what we're looking for here and now let's talk about artificial intelligence and again keeping in mind that many nations will hold elections next year and this will be the first election that will be held with this amazing technology available so the gzo team asked another question to its followers and that question was what impact will aav have on future election let's see what the audience voted positive impact 6% negative impact 42% both positive and negative 47 neutral impact 5% do you want to react on that yeah I you were expecting that um I wasn't expecting it but I'm definitely in the camp of both positive and negative and I'll give you a great example of both negative first and then positive I think we have a good glimpse into the negative use of AI um we saw the Russians do this recently in Canada um and the best use of AI technology if you want to spread this information is to create so-called deep fakes which is really a fake audio or fake video they wanted to discredit a man who lives in Canada who is Ukrainian and who has been a voice for Ukraine so what they did is they created a fake audio of him saying something he never said they then took a legitimate real broadcast of the CBC the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and they spliced into that this deep fake audio so that tells us something this is a recipe that will probably be followed you know take legitimate things and insert forgery within it I'm I'm very worried about the audio because we talk a lot about the Deep fake and the video but I think you're right the audio is the simplest way to an election rightly it's audio I think it'll be both but I think audio you're right that is the easiest way now let's look at AI as a shield and as a tool the interesting thing is we're able to use AI now to identify these kinds of fakes we're able to use AI to identify patterns AI is an extraordinarily powerful tool to identify patterns within data so for example when we detected after the fire in l the Chinese using an influence network of more than a 100 influencers all saying the same thing at the same time in more than 30 different languages their message was false it was that the United States purportedly had set the fire through a meteorological weapon were able to detect that very quickly so AI can be used to create false information it can be used to Target it it's probably very good at helping people Target Translate but it's good at detection too but then the question is do you think that could impact an election or we just not like for now we in 20 years I absolutely believe it could impact this election in 2024 um because well gets to what Brad just said AI can be used as a tool a very powerful tool but the principal agents of an election need to be in agreement on using that tool constructively and that is the problem in the US when the people that are actually running the social media platforms are themselves political actors who are very vested in promoting certain types of polarization and disinformation you cannot not and maybe not just one person in no no no I use they all use it I think that's a serious problem and I think also when the political officials are very vested in what some of those outcomes would be or some of the people that are running to become political off officials so the AI as a technology absolutely can be used for national security purposes to help defend the Integrity of Elections but the government actors must be aligned and the private sector actors must be aligned to support democracy and right now we do not have those lattitudes so what what could we do no and to go back to a point that I found very interesting that Brad was mentioning is where do you put the limit what's the red line and and that goes to how do you interpret freedom of speech and in the US you have the First Amendment which actually is so important that um anything else could be seen as censorship whereas in France I think we have a higher tolerance to some sort of Regulation which is not going to be seen as censorship as it would in the US so it's also a very cultural um aspect of things and when you have well someone like you know um the the the owner of X that actually has a very um I would say First Amendment view of uh of of um speech then you have a problem I think because you can have anything said and you have no way of filtering the information now to to the point of is AI good or bad I do think that it's a very powerful tool but it really depends on how you use it and it can be actually even more complex I'll give you an example in 2017 two of um candidate Z's videos were taken down from the YouTube chain because they were a far rights politician in friend for those who don't know because they were they were made with e Ai and they were considered as um not not accurate had it had it been another video taken down his channel the channel could have been shut down by law I mean that that would have been just an application of the French law but imagine the Scandal it would have been if a candidate to the presidency had had his um YouTube CH channel uh shut down so it's not only how do you regulate but how do you actually tell the people that you're regulating and that it makes sense and that it is acceptable and you you you go away from a sort of a fake news or huge Scandal that you could have just by applying the law so Mar so many different things and I'm staying quiet on purpose yeah let's go back to AI do you think that could that could have an impact and do you think it would be okay to censor AI because people are going to say well that's my creativity I do what I want no no no it's already had an impact right you cannot have integrity of Elections if you don't have integrity of facts if you don't have a shared reality all of that has already happened and that's part of the reason you're seeing the the movement globally towards authoritarian rule I mean VM says as of this year 72% of the world is now under authoritarian rule right we live through this so this is quite personal but like just three points from what everyone has said I think the first part is AI as a defense tool will always be behind the eightball because it is reacting it you need to feed it unless of course generative AI becomes much much smarter much quicker right so you have to feed it so it's reacting to data that has already happened I know this because when we were attacked it took the platforms years to come back and fix it with AI yes they did but it's not fixed um the second one is Free Speech as a I mean the United States will say this and and many of the tech companies will want that because that continues a business model that has exploited all of our data um it isn't a free speech issue it's a design issue of the of the companies that are now connecting all of us I think the third thing um in terms of uh elections itself it's brilliant because the the messages change the way we vote because it changes it it manipulates our fear anger hate and then changes the way we look at the world and that changes the way we vote right that's social media in general but I guess the last part of this Which is far more dangerous is we no longer have a shared reality we're in a chaotic environment let's look at what's happening right now and you know please tell me much more optimistic things but um in Israel and Palestine if you look at Tik Tock let's take it out of you know I first blamed the American uh social media companies because they made tremendous amounts of money at this but now let's look at Tik Tock and let's look at the first month of the conflict of of the war in Gaza what is happening now Israel Hamas right and if you look at that data it shows you that almost 97% 96.5% is #f free Palestine targeting our kids 18 to 24 years old 3.5% is # iand with Israel so what are

you saying this was actually a guy who used to work with paler who said so either the pales the free Palestine is as as more popular than Kim Jong-un in North Korea or China is weighing in which one I know we're on the Titanic that's all right but can we can we find something you know to to get hold of you know yes yeah please tell me I look I think there's four concrete steps we can take step number one tech companies can and should take create technology tools that enable let's stick with elections for a moment candidates for example to Watermark their content so that it can't be split apart and have fakes inserted into it without that being easy to detect we launched something like that yesterday at Microsoft content credentials for do you think everybody would do that I'm sure Microsoft would do that do you think in China or in other countries they would accept that just a question I don't know I I don't know but let's focus first on protecting the Electoral processes where there will be elections next year yeah um Step number two let's make it unlawful to deliberately defraud the public by creating content that is knowingly false in effect that's what there's a bipartisan bill in the United States Senate we endorsed it yesterday step number three let's reach an agreement quickly on what we want platforms to do when they detect this kind of fraudulent content I would say it's either remove it or relabel it m and either one is readily workable uh if you want to avoid the censorship debate let's relabel it so it's like this has been altered and then step number four then let's have recourse so that the users of platforms both have transparency they know what the platforms are doing and have the ability to say wait you got it wrong so then there is a a check on the platform in that way too we would go into 2024 with at least a game plan today we don't yet have a game plan Society that's a problem I I I I think that these are very important steps that need to be pushed through and endorsed by all of the major tech tech companies do I believe that that's going to happen across the board I am skeptical because the business models are not all aligned um I I I think that the um the ability of um a a government look if if we have a conversation and it is about blowing something up we're responsible for that conversation no one else is but if we have that conversation on a phone and the phone company they they they tape that conversation and they promote it to everyone out there that might be interested in blowing stuff up the the Telecom the telephone company is responsible for that we are in an environment right now where we are algorithmically promoting information that is causing damage it is disinformation it is spreading hate we've got the supreme leader of Iran calling for genocide of Jews like the end of Zionism it's being algorithmically promoted in my feed and Brad's feed and this insane right and I'm not by the way I'm not suggesting that what we want is censorship I I agree in the United States historically we don't we don't respond with censorship we respond with lawyers in other words in other words there has to be a level if you're making the money from the model there has to be a level of accountability when you're promoting things that are causing damage and and S I tell you the business models that aren't the line when they realize they can get sued for stuff to very different play The Devil's Advocate but it's going so fast so many message every day how can you just say oh we're going to use lawyers I mean you need thousands of your lawyers that's no you have to put the law in place so the Digital Services act for example is the best of the is the best I I always say the EU is winning the race of the turtles but but we we need to move faster right so yes bow bow you're move but it's still not fast enough so yes um it I think we need to First make clear to everybody and this is where journalists can also help what the danger is we're still stuck in old ways you talked about is it the journalist yes to a degree news organizations are not as strong as they were our business model's dead right um and we're under attack by the very same forces we're talking about so um so laws can that's necessary and actually it isn't censorship you cannot yell fire in a crowded theater there are laws that govern society and that's not having those in place is what has turned the world upside down and what has given dictators to be greater power just quickly about the DSA because obviously I guess you want to react on that can you explain to our audience what is that we try we are trying in Europe and if if you think that could work well no there is a this new piece of Regulation and there's actually been an achievement because it's been approved on a first lecture on on in June 2023 so a few months ago um and and the idea is to set Common Grounds and to regulate our numerical space and one of those Common Grounds is also working with uh in artificial intelligence but also Al always ensuring that there's human behind it I think those principles as broad as they can be are a common ground that we can all work with and I go I would go back to what Brett said about relabeling relabeling is great but you have to tell people that what it means and uh and I think relabeling could be enough if it's sufficiently visible if it's sufficiently perceived because we have to stop thinking that people are just stupid they're not um if you educate them properly to um to these Technologies to the impact they can have you'd be amazed by how intelligent they are and I I'm always amazed by my children as any mother would be but they understand these things way quicker than I did um 10 years ago 20 years ago so so I do think that without censoring the whole system by applying some regulations such as the one we have with influencers we so the bills I was telling you before that we adopted influen there's a a regulation of influencers tent that we adopted in at the National Assembly earlier this year then there's also um this regulation numeric which aims at um essentially fighting against pedo pornography uh online but it actually helps you know cleaning the internet quickly when you think that there is an abuse so that could be seen as censorship but it but it isn't actually and then also against terrorism so I think everyone could agree on those principles including in the US including the most fervent supporters of of the First Amendment and that would set common ground that would help companies work on the model and I agree you always need lawyers well I think we're getting better now we are ttles on the deck of the Titanic I I like the IDE uh and I think it's important now to talk about trust I'd like to share with you a Gallup survey which is quite worrying I think I found that it found that trust in the media in the US has never been so low and I'm afraid that's not very different in France so g0 asks another question to its followers do you trust media's coverage of elections in your country yes somewhat not much not at all and let's see what the people voted H well still yes so you know why that is yeah yeah because they trust the media that they are watching and they're watching the piece of media that is aligned to them so this is not actually enormously positive thing the media land landcape is seriously fragmented and increasingly broken which is one of part of the reasons why technology needs to be part of the solution yes by itself I mean th all of this was coming before technology yes I mean talk radio cable news this was pre- technology you were dividing people into just follow what you already agree with and technology turbocharges that but at least gives us tools that also can potentially constrain it like what like we've been talking about I mean another so tools that actually show you this is this is a bad actor it used to be that you do advertising and you had no idea if the advertising was successful or not used through it out there now you can do microt targeting AI is very good at identifying patterns around microt targeting that can be used for ill that can be used to undermine democracies that can be used to destroy Israel Palestine I mean we just talked about the Middle East you mentioned Tik Tok yeah this is the first time in a major conflict that disinformation fundamentally changed the trajectory of the conflict right at the beginning Biden was going over to meet with the Israelis and also Jordan Egypt and the Palestinians and disinformation expanded by Hamas on the hospital then picked up by the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times and the AP and Reuters by the way left and right because they were all getting their information off of social media and but it was all wrong information and you know as they say a lie goes around the world before truth gets his pants on you already had cancellation of the summit by the Middle Eastern countries before the real information came out so the summit was cancelled and the United States was forced on one side of that couldn't have the other meetings that's meaningful real-time impact of disinformation yeah that concrete it's important to give concrete example to people that how that impacts it's not like uh it's something that's happening right now Maria you won't disagree with that absolutely I mean look in the in the medium term look at what's happened to the Philippines right there's no way way that I would I should be facing a century in jail there was nothing there but this is disinformation you pound the lie a million times uh for me the it was journalist is a criminal and then president tutter our president then said the same thing a year later this is the seeding part and then we got our first subena right this is the way uh we lose democracy but I think on the other part of this is that if we do not this is like a post Hiroshima this is one of those moments and if we do not as a whole globally step up and do what they did how did the universal Declaration of Human Rights come together right like and with generative AI coming up right how do we do this um I thought one of the most interesting things and of course Brad will answer that but one of the most interesting things about the EU is it went far but every every case that it had now it's kind of blown out of the water by generative Ai and it didn't go as far as naming the tech company's Publishers which is actually the key Point are they or are they not I'm sure you won to well I actually think the approaching the DSA is probably you know something like the right approach I think if that if you just treated a tech platform like a traditional news publisher and imposed an obligation to basically fact check everything before it was published it would be very difficult to publish everything that the world actually wants to see because people do want to see user generated content on the other hand what we have in the United States is just protects Publishers from in effect doing anything if they're in the technology business they're a social media platform so Europe is trying to chart a new way um maybe they're faster than a turtle uh Maria you use your phrase and what I think will be interesting and important is to learn from the experience experience and then adapt further okay so every everybody seems to be okay with the DSA I wasn't expecting that so no no well that's great news first of all I'm glad but I was I was going to go back to the example you gave about the how how this disinformation affected geopolitics like on the spot and and how um traditional media jumped into the the the news the the and and you had a rotors uh ifp and AFA a headline saying something about this hospital without any sort of fact check and that uh to me actually um raises the question of journalistic ethic on at the time of of social media it's not because if you're a journalist and you tweet or or or you publish a Content that is not official does that you know do you do you not have to check your sources do you isn't there something that you because you are a journalist of course I trust a journalist saying something more than I trust just a random you know troll but let me defend the journalist in that one right Hamas said it so technically they they had a quote from someone who did but the problem here is that you know you said it we're skeptical Hamas here just to let you know yeah no I understand exactly getting some looks no no no but that's but that's the point right in the old world as long as you attribute your as a journalist now it demands more right but but the problem is that it isn't the old world and I I've lived in countries where in times of war in times of conflict literally we the news organizations were called by the government to slow it down okay right why does the the pace of information have to move at the tech dictated Pace but can we go against it can we go against you think that's design of the Internet isn't the best we know this so why will we not we work with tech Partners um rler is one of the 10 groups that's working with open AI to look at how large language models can be used to help democracy right it is in their power right now in I it's in the tech hands because governments the EU take too long um so why not why do we want to I mean the only thing that benefits from of a burden for the tech companies to tell them you know take care of everything slow down I'm say I'ma it's not going to work like like what do you think I don't well no I think there's a couple of factors here that are worth thinking about first what Maria is positing is that technology is moving information so fast that truth can't keep up yeah that was actually said by the New York Times in the 1850s about the Telegraph and and they weren't Wrong by the way because the night that Abraham Lincoln won the president presidential election in 1860 this information was literally spreading across the United States so I think let's start by recognizing this problem has been around for a long time what do we do well first you do need I think journalists to course correct and you need governments to help and by the way I would say there was a pretty fastc course correction yeah about the attack on that hospital you know truth not only emerged but it emerged within some hours yeah but the but the Biden didn't go to I understand that the real world impact yeah and it's not to say that falsehoods don't have real impact yeah but what we should always look for is is there an ability to course correct and this is where traditional journalism I think remains vital I do think that reputable news organizations still get the calls yes they get the requests be thoughtful you know and I do think that we also live in a world where the New York Times is sharing data that's coming from satellites that wouldn't have been available even 10 years ago because the only satellites in the world were controlled by governments War reporting's always been difficult fog of War yeah so you know we have all of that I think what we have to go back to though to some degree is there is a flood disinformation so there's more out there with which to Grapple yes there is less resilience societally there is no real mechanism no consensus about what to do when we do detect these falsehoods and we're not having the conversations or even just the fundamental education in our school systems in some countries as to how to look and detect things that just don't sound right let me go back back for a moment to that story about the falsehood spread in the wake of the Hawaiian fire just think about the story what somebody said was did you know that the fire was set by the United States using a meteorological weapon well just think for a moment does such a weapon plausibly exist if it does exist would a government set a fire on itself or would it more likely test it somewhere else unfortunately what we're seeing here is what we saw in 2015 by the Russians as they got ready for 2016 look for gullible people look for people who are more likely to believe something that just isn't true or even plausible do that and build a list of those followers now you know who to Target when it matters most the week before an election the month before an election and I think that is a huge huge problem and we're going to have to figure out how to do a better job of addressing it and and I think this it's it doesn't impact only people who who are weak or know anything information that be too simple right because I think it creates some kind of environment where nobody knows what's wrong what's true and it kind of destroy trust in the political system in Dem and journalist and everything by Des I'm worry a great deal we got to name names on this you look at X as a platform right now and the active throttling of journalistic Institutions and their links to real coverage compared to the promotion of verified citizen journalists who do not have the resources and that is actively undermining the ability to ensure that people get good and quality information if it turns out that Twitter X is a meaningful part of the social Town Square of the Public Square then the United States government has a very strong interest in ensuring that people are going to have access to trusted sources there part of Microsoft's effort is saying we're going to have elections going forward we're going to promote information that we know about campaigns not just in the us all over the world comes from trusted and verified sources so that if you're in a hybrid democracy or democracy that might fall apart because a local leader is prepared to use it against them we're going to be part of the part of the place that says no this is what's really going on Voice of America used to do that right but in this environment there ain't no voice of America for social media so that's why there's a big hole that needs to be filled it goes back to I think this risk that people may be gullible not because they're not smart but because they're not informed and they're not getting a broader set of information and especially when you have a social media platform that dismantles its safety architecture and its safety teams exactly yeah you create a dynamic where those risks rise considerably that's all of them right now right because everyone like Elon Musk set such a low bar and the things that both meta and Google were going to do they're not doing anymore so we're walking far more vulnerable into these elections but I would say just the last part of this is it isn't that someone is weak or that they don't have information it's that we are now operating in a place our in our Public Square is about emotions it's about triggering the worst emotions and we expect people to think right this is the problem that we have and that's part of the reason the Insidious manipulation you know in the Nobel lecture in 2021 I said we should reform or revoke section 230 of the 1996 Communications decency act that's the one that gives the tech companies cover to let the lies to let the manipulation go right so the social media companies that's not going to happen Ian will tell me why but um but that's it it's not even like random it's not even people who aren't smart it is all of us it's our biology it's a problem for all of us and I think it's important to not to blame certain people and say oh we're not concerned by that I think we've made it pretty clear that technology has a great impact on Democracy um and it's important to fight misinformation and foreign interference in elections it's also crucial to regulate generative AI because it could be a dangerous technology so the peace Forum begins tomorrow in Paris what do we hope can happen if you had to pick one thing what would it be what should we do all together because it can only be together that we can achieve anything El maybe first I would go back to education and and to your point just um previously about the fact that we can all actually be uh manipulated by by this because we look at the likes we look at the hearts we look at the Smileys and the Emojis um on the bottom of every single piece of information and we're not actually looking at who's producing the information where it comes from whether it's reliable what source it is we put everything at the same level and what we look is at the scale the the the massive um scale of people commenting on information and the bigger the LIE the more it will be commented the bad Buzz is better than good Buzz so I think we all have a a responsibility here because we know this we've known this for ages we have the tools to fight it and yet we're still all twitting and or whatever you say now and we're still commenting and and and looking for our own information on those platforms where there's no differentiation on the type of information so I think actually leading by example would be something that I would recommend we do um as as leaders and and teaching and and telling kids but not only kids everyone you know there's a plenty out there and plenty is rotten but there's also good information there are things that we wouldn't have access to a few years ago and we shouldn't be afraid of Technology we should just embrace it and ensure that everyone has the tools to actually use it in a good way so education would be key what would be the thing we should do well fundamentally I think the Paris peace for was founded 5 years ago so this is the fth anniversary by President mol on the premise that the preservation of Peace was going to require a new commitment to multilateralism that really means in the 21st century multistakeholderism I think we should renew and redouble our efforts by focusing on the problems we're describing here I think we've talked about a number of concrete steps they all require that government the private sector NOS journalists civil society that we all come together and we should put some stakes in the ground and let's focus on the next year and let's see if we can build some more momentum to get some more things done we we won't get everything done but there's no reason to reach the first of the year where we are right now and we could take some practical steps Maria how we jump out of this Titanic there are three things that we're announcing in the Paris peace Forum I chair or co-chair that all these three I think the first one is the charter on AI and journalism that we're doing with reporters Without Borders uh that will be announced tomorrow um the second one is the international fund for public interest media right the tech has collapsed our business model in media we will not survive and so in the interim period we've gone to governments last year we raised about $50 million to give to news organizations so that we can survive this time period as we look for Solutions and then the third thing thing as president Marron has put together it's much nicer in French and since I don't speak French they always have to translate for me it's the egi it's a landmark group that actually will try to redefine what the world what France is going to do in trying to do that we will try to find definitions we have to look at the world like it's been demolished this is the Destruction part and we must create it moving forward I will be announcing the Innovation lab which is going to be at the Institute of global politics but more than that what can all of us if you're watching what can you do what are you willing to sacrifice at this moment in time yeah finan well you know 5 years and I got to say you know it's not like we have more peace over that time but but that's not a failure of the Paris peace Forum that's actually why the Paris peace Forum was created is because you know macron and others very much understood that we were heading into a position that was geopolitically unsustainable and then we needed to redouble our efforts to try to change the trajectory of that now I I do think that for all the challenges we're talking about here the multi-stakeholder approach is mostly populated by adults that want stability they don't want to break things they don't all like each other they don't all have the same business models they certainly don't all trust each other they're frequently competitive but they don't want everything to break we look right now at a war that is just erupted in the Middle East and the Americans and Chinese and the Europeans and all the major companies want that war over want that war over as fast as possible possible because this if it gets worse is a global recession but becomes a middle eastern War um and and we'll have huge knock-on implications for stability of Europe migrants all this sort of thing the the Russia Ukraine war I mean has become more of a partisan issue in the US but still you don't want the ukrainians to lose you want territorial Integrity to win you want Ukrainian democracy to win you want you want the ukrainians to be a part of the European Union they're getting candidate status that is something that adults want and and when I look at AI you also have something it's very very fast moving we just had The Bletchley declaration and the Americans and the Europeans and the Chinese all stood up with the private sector they all agreed how did they agree when they have no trust they agreed because they understand that this is so fast moving and so proliferating that you need to ensure that you have some guard rails so the whole damn thing doesn't break and we're in an environment right now where multistakeholderism first and foremost means guard rails it doesn't mean fix everything but it also doesn't mean the Titanic it does mean that like we see that things if they are without guard rails will start to threaten our fundamental interest in equities that's what the Paris peace Forum needs to be about that part of the conversation the problem is so huge that it's like the climate at some point we need to react let's hope I mean you're so passionate you convinced me so I I hope we convinced convinced everybody it's been a fascinating conversation I hope you enjoyed it you can see all of gz's coverage from the Paris peace Forum including a panel discussion focused on combating cyber crime by heading to gz media.com Global stage I'm Juni I want to thank you for watching us and for especially for putting up with my French accent for so long I know it's hard have a great [Music] weekend n n

2023-11-16 04:51

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