Each week, I publish a list of interesting articles, essays and reports that may be of interest to the digital diplomacy community. This week-

1. Inside the powerful Peter Thiel network that anointed JD Vance (The Washington Post)
2. China Is Closing the A.I. Gap With the United States (The New York Times)
3. OpenAI working on new reasoning technology under code name ‘Strawberry’ (Reuters)
4. Social robot or digital avatar, users interact with this AI technology as if it’s real (The Conversation)
5. Why does AI pose a huge energy supply problem? (Al Jazeera)
6. How technology can strengthen democracy—an interview with Audrey Tang (The Economist)
7. AI that Feeds on Garbage Spews Garbage (MIT Technology Review)
8. Shares drop in US and Asia as AI stocks slide (BBC News)
9. The Illicit Flow of Technology to Russia Goes Through This Hong Kong Address (The New York Times)

Some light reading- Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, by V.I. Lenin

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Each week, I publish a list of interesting articles, essays and reports that may be of interest to the digital diplomacy community. This week-

1. How Microsoft’s Satya Nadella Became Tech’s Steely Eyed A.I. Gambler ?(The New York Times)
2. Google Close to Its Biggest Acquisition Ever, Despite Antitrust Scrutiny (The New York Times)
3. ‘Amazing’ new technology set to transform the search for alien life (The Guardian)
4. AI Has Become a Technology of Faith (The Atlantic)
5. OpenAI working on new reasoning technology under code name ‘Strawberry’ (Reuters)
6. What Are AI Agents (MIT Technology Review)
7. How Female Entrepreneurs Are Using Technology To Solve Real-World Problems (Forbes)
8. Apple to Allow Rivals to Access ‘Tap and Go’ Technology (Wired)
9. Crossing The AI Chasm With Technology Thinker And Visionary Geoffrey Moore (Forbes)

Some Light Reading- Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography, by Roland Barthes

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The term ‘dual-use technology’ is used to denote technologies that may have both civil and military applications. Such is the case with Global Positioning Systems or GPS which are used to help track and identify targets for missile attacks and are also used to help drivers navigate in cars. Another example is drones which may be used by news channels to cover a protest, by individuals to record family events and by armies to attack various types of targets including infantry units, tanks and infrastructure.

Increasingly, the term ‘digital diplomacy’ can be classified as a sort of ‘dual-use terminology’. On the one hand digital diplomacy refers to the impact that digital technologies have on the norms, values and working routines of diplomats and diplomatic institutions. When used in this way, digital diplomacy refers to a host of diplomatic activities that are now conducted using digital technologies. This can include Ambassadors’ use of WhatsApp to coordinate votes at the UN or draft joint resolution; multilateral summits that are held virtually using Zoom; the growing use of smartphone applications to conduct diaspora diplomacy; Embassies use of social media to narrate state policies and diplomats’ use of visuals and memes to contextualize global affairs.  

On the other hand, the term ‘digital diplomacy’ also refers to the diplomatic management of technology-related issues. This may include international accords used to regulate the development of various technologies; technology-based collaborations between states as was the case during the race for the Covid19 vaccine; using multilateral institutions to create norms and standards that impact the development of innovative technologies and using diplomatic settings to address issues raised by new technologies. For example, WIPO is increasingly called upon to help define intellectual property rights in the age of generative AI. A necessity given that AI tools such as ChatGPT rely on the works of others to provide answers to prompts. Another example is a UNESCO roadmap for the ethical development of AI.

In other words, digital diplomacy means two different things. It can either mean conducting diplomacy through digital technologies or the diplomatic management of technology-related issues. For many years, the former use was more dominant. When people used the term ‘digital diplomacy’, they were referring to diplomats’ use of social media or MFAs’ use of big data analysis to track and disable fake social media accounts. Later the term included other elements such as using digital platforms to debunk disinformation campaigns. Yet the War in Ukraine, and growing tensions in various parts of the world, have led to a shift in terminology and increasingly when people talk about ‘digital diplomacy’, they are referring to digital policy making.

One notable example is the concept of ‘digital sovereignty’ in which states seek to ensure the safety of national data or to prevent manipulation of data generated by the state or by its citizens. Digital sovereignty also refers to a state’s right to manage its digital ecosystem and the recognition that just as states have physical borders so they may have digital borders within which citizens’ data must be protected. Of course, as is the case with physical sovereignty, digital sovereignty can only exist if states recognize one another’s digital borders. This is akin to diplomatic recognition between states and is an example of how traditional concepts in diplomacy are being reshaped by digital technologies. Offline tensions between states can lead to disputes or even violations of digital sovereignty as is the case with cyber attacks that have taken place at an increasing rate since the start of the Ukraine War.

Another example of digital policy making is the growing number of diplomatic missions to Silicon Valley. Although some states created Embassies or missions to Silicon Valley years ago, since the Russia Ukraine War the number of representations to the Valley has grown. This may be the result of Ukraine’s ability to enact a tech boycott of Russia. Indeed, states may have opened Embassies or missions to Silicon Valley to foster ties with Tech CEOs and to ensure that their state will not be boycotted in the future. Additionally, states may have deployed diplomats to Silicon Valley given Ukraine’s reliance on Tech moguls, such as Elon Musk, whose Star Link system has enabled Ukraine to maintain its internet connectivity and use connected warfare on the battlefield. Whatever the motive, diplomats assigned to Silicon Valley conduct routine diplomatic functions in new settings. Their task remains to manage relations of friendship and enmity between entities.

The question that comes to the fore is whether there is a need for a new term that better captures the ways in which diplomats are increasingly called upon to manage issues related to technology. In the past, some scholars and diplomats have used the term ‘Cyber Diplomacy’ and yet this term is often associated more with national security concerns and ways of safeguarding states from cyber-attacks. Others have used the term ‘Tech-Plomacy”’ yet this is a rather narrow term used to denote the diplomatic efforts of specific states. Still others have suggested the term ‘E-Diplomacy’ which seems somewhat dated, or ‘network diplomacy’, which again is too narrow.

Whether a new term arises or not, what is evident is that scholars must pay growing attention to the additional meaning of ‘digital diplomacy’. The majority of digital diplomacy articles, book chapters and volumes still focus on diplomacy through digital technologies and not on the digital management of technology-related issues. MFAs too must consider whether the diplomatic management of technology related issues should impact their daily operations and structures. As diplomacy will increasingly deal with technology related issues, and as technology related issues may lead to collaborations between states or rivalries, MFA may need to create digital desks staffed with diplomats who are experts in communications and negotiations, on the one hand, and domain experts in digital technologies on the other. A digital desk is very different from existing digital diplomacy departments that oversee MFA digital communications. As the focus of ‘digital diplomacy’ shifts, so must the gaze of scholars and diplomats.

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The ‘middle-ground’ is as important to diplomacy as it is to society. It is in the middle-ground where diplomats can meet and resolve differences. It is in the middle-ground where different citizens, with different opinions, can meet to discuss issues of shared concern. It is therefore in the middle-ground where action may be initiated.

In the case of diplomats, meetings in the middle-ground can result in collective action, be it a diplomatic accord or a shared agenda to be promoted at multilateral institutions. In the case of citizens, meetings in the middle-ground can result in collective actions such as new legislations or the creation of protest movements to advocate in favor or against certain policies. Yet meetings in the middle-ground can only bear fruit if those meeting have a shared definition of reality. If two citizens meet in the middle-ground, with one arguing that Covid19 is a hoax, and the second suggesting that Covid19 is a health risk, they will fail to act collectively. Similarly, if according to one diplomat Russia has not invaded Ukraine, while another argues that there are thousands of Russian troops in Ukraine, they too will also fail to collectively act.

Social media, by nature, fractures reality. Algorithmic filter bubbles create a new world in which different people subscribe to different realities. According to the social media reality of one user, Big Brother is the best show on television. This reality is enforced thanks to social media content, be it TV reviews of Big Brother, posts with stunning scenes from last week’s episode or interviews with the show’s creators. According to the social media reality of another user, Dancing with the Stars is the best show on TV and this reality is also strengthened and enforced thanks to social media content tailored by algorithms. Although these two users subscribe to different realities, these differences are not enough to raise concern. But what happens when social media users’ content deals with important issues such as wars, crises or political scandals? Different realities on social media may prevent citizens from reaching an agreed upon definition of reality and, in turn, prevent citizens from taking collective action.

For instance, according to the reality of some social media users, Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 launching a full-scale War against the Ukrainian people.  Yet according to the reality of other social media users, Russia invaded Ukraine to prevent a Ukrainian attack on Moscow. And according to the reality of still other social media users, Ukraine attacked Russia following orders from US President Joe Biden while in the reality of other users NATO triggered the War as part of its efforts to weaken Russia. These realities differ from one another greatly yet all of them are enforced and strengthened thanks to social media content, partisan media and biased information sources.

Different realities on social media complicate the task of diplomats as they erode the legitimacy and support necessary to resolve issues through diplomatic action. Diplomacy rests on domestic and global support. Yet social media users may view diplomats’ actions negatively based on their specific reality. Indeed, some social media users may oppose any settlement of the War in Ukraine that does not exact a price from Russia for invading Ukraine. Others would oppose any agreement that does not exact a heavy price from Ukraine, or the US, or NATO for forcing Russia’s hand into a bloody and violent war.

Although social media is already defined by a plurality of realities, this phenomenon may soon accelerate thanks to Generative Visual AI tools. The reason being that in digital societies, images and videos serve an evidentiary purpose. They prove that something did in fact occur.  They serve to validate, strengthen and cement social media realities. Yet now, false images, bearing witness to false and fictitious realities, can be created within a matter of minutes. And although AI images are still not good enough to deceive all social media users, they soon will be, in the process fracturing reality into billions of alternate and even conflicting realities. This will destroy the middle-ground causing great injury to national and international societies.

Last week I sought to create an alternate reality for the Covid19 virus. In my doctored reality, the work on the Covid virus began in the 1950s in the USSR. The virus strain was first discovered by two Soviet sisters who were both scientists at a bio lab outside Moscow. Once the virus was developed, it needed to be stored safely so that it may be used in any altercation with the West. Thus, the virus was stored on a Soviet submarine carrying the strains of many viruses. In 2019, Chinese scientists, working in a Chinese bio lab, replicated the Soviet virus and delivered it to the Chinese military. Although this reality seems fanciful, consider the visual evidence shown below documenting each stage in the development of the Covid virus, visuals created within 20 minutes.

Russian Sisters in Soviet Lab

The Soviet Bio Lab

Covid Virus on Soviet Submarine

Chinese Bio Lab

Delivering Virus to Chinese Military

The question raised by Generative AI, and Visual AI, in particular is not whether these tools may be used to create alternative realities that erode the middle-ground. The question is whether Generative AI will create highly believable alternate realities; realities that people will believe in so passionately that any ability to accept a different reality is eroded. If this is indeed the case, the middle-ground may soon also erode, proving a formidable challenge to diplomats and societies.   

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Each week, I publish a list of interesting articles, essays and reports that may be of interest to the digital diplomacy community. This week-

1. Iran-linked Website Leaks Secret Israeli Data (Haaretz Newspaper)
2. The Technology Powering Taylor Swift, Netflix and the Sphere (Bloomberg)
3. AI scientist : “We will expand intelligence a millionfold by 2045”| (The Guardian)
4. The screen tech that can do almost anything (BBC News)
5. Brussels follows up Apple charges with Meta ‘pay or consent’ case  (The Financial Times)
6. How Apple became an AI stock (The Financial Times)
7. Voice messages may be a new frontier for cybercriminals (Cyber News)
8. The Problem the US TikTok Crackdown and Kaspersky Ban Have in Common (Wired)
9. Mayor AI? OpenAI shuts down tools for two AI political candidates (CNN News)

Some light reading- On Lying and Politics, by Hannah Arendt

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Acknowledgement: This blog post is part of a paper that I presented at a recent workshop on humor and global politics at the University of Sheffield. I am thankful to all participants and to the organizer, Dr. Dmitry Chernobrov.

Since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine War, Ukraine has used social media to rally online and offline support for its war effort. Using a host of digital platforms including X, Facebook, Instagram and Telegram, Ukraine has sought to capture and retain the attention of global, digital publics. This is no easy task given the short attention span of digital publics, their habit of scrolling from one post to another and the constant barrage of scandals, celebrity mishaps and international crises that are communicated daily online. Ukraine’s efforts have included using social media to raise funds from average users, to create an IT army that can coordinate cyber attacks against Russian targets and appointing digital Ambassadors that help Ukraine reach diverse digital users, Ambassadors such as Star Wars actor Mark Hamill and singer Barbra Streisand.

What is unique about Ukraine’s digital approach is its heavy reliance on humor when communicating on social media. One would think that a violent War which has claimed the lives of thousands of individuals, and which has displaced hundreds of thousands of individuals, would be no laughing matter. However, Ukraine has demonstrated that a strategic approach to humor can benefit a country, especially one caught in a war of attrition that spans months or years. Indeed, the longer the war, the greater the chance of “War fatigue” among social media users who crave new viral trends and controversies.

On its main Twitter accounts, Ukraine has published dozens of humorous tweets, many of them referencing popular culture. The reason for this may be that humor requires knowledge. Understanding a joke necessitates both cultural and historical knowledge and jokes that would be considered funny in one culture might fail to resonate with other cultures. Consider, for instance, the very English joke below.

A Vicar in a small Parish wrote a letter to his Bishop stating “my wife has died. Please send the replacement”.

Humor scholarship suggests that this joke is funny given the incongruity or dissonance between the Vicar, a priest in the English Church, and his demand for a woman to replace his wife. There is also the initial confusion as one might assume that the Vicar is asking for a replacement wife when he is really asking for a Vicar to relieve him of his duties. This joke may not travel across cultures and borders given that it requires previous cultural knowledge such as the attributes of the Church of England as well as a high proficiency in English to “catch” the word play of a replacement wife.

The question that emerges is how can Ukraine create humorous content that could be understood by a global audience of social media users? The answer is popular culture. Global pop culture creates a globally literate public, one that can understand a multitude of jokes that reference TV shows, movies, computer games and celebrity culture. A joke comparing Ukraine’s President to Captain America or depicting Russian President Putin as the villain Thanos or asking for Harry Potter’s aid would be understood by social media users in Western and Eastern Europe, as well as in the Middle East, Africa and Southeast Asia.    

Ukraine’s reliance on popular culture was already noticeable during the early stages of the War, as is the case with the tweet below published in March of 2020, one month after Russia’s invasion.

Since then, Ukraine’s use of humor has grown more sophisticated. For example, Ukraine now uses humor to address serious issues and to ensure military support from Western Europe and North America. Such is the case with the meme below of Harry Potter which clearly states that “we don’t expect patronum spells- we need patriot missiles’ ‘. The phrasing of the tweet is reminiscent of President Zelenskyy’s famous reply to a rescue offer by the US stating, “I don’t need a ride, I need ammunition”. The tweet uses the Harry Potter universe to explain the needs of Ukraine, to demonstrate the urgency of Ukraine’s plight and to relate to digital publics why the Patriot missiles are so important- because like patronum spells they may help Ukraine fight off Russian soldiers, or dementors in Potter’s language.   

Moreover, Ukraine now uses humor in response to current events thus ensuring the timeliness of its jokes.  For instance, when videos emerged of Russian Priests consecrating Tanks before battle Ukraine quickly published a similar video with the phrase “Oh. My. God. Literally” a nod to the famous line from the television show Friends. This joke is used to narrate events to digital publics or help them make sense of this prolonged War. In this case, Ukraine may have sought to depict Russia as losing the War and resorting to prayers to offset Russian losses on the battlefield.

Another tweet, shown below, was published in conjunction with the Met Gala, an annual star-studded event. What is most important is the visual resonance between the Ukrainian soldier shown below and some of the scenes from the actual Met Gala. This humorous tweet may have been invoked to once again summon the attention of social media users and retain that attention. In terms of narrating events, this humorous tweet may have sought to remind digital publics that Ukraine is very much part of Western culture and the “West”. Since the War broke out Ukraine has emphasized that it is part of the “West” to negate the misconception that Ukraine is part of Russia.

Third, Ukraine’s humor has grown much more violent. Ukrainian accounts now routinely publish videos from drones documenting the destruction of Russian tanks, armored vehicles and equipment. These tweets often promise to rain hell on Russian soldiers and are accompanied by rock and roll music. Although very violent in nature, Ukraine may be using such humor strategically to “prove” that its War effort is succeeding and that military support for Ukraine is helping it win the battle against Russia. This is an important message as Ukraine hopes to secure continuous military aid amid growing criticism in different countries.

It is important to note that Ukraine’s use of humor may have detrimental effects. The fusing of pop culture and War serves to legitimize War and make it “fun”. In the long term, humorous tweets of war may make war more palatable to social media users. Moreover, tweets that blend humor and nature, such as the “Met Gala” tweet above, suggest that war is a natural or logical response to tensions between states. In this way, war is transformed from a regrettable last resort to a first and natural resort, as Susan Jackson argues. Finally, humorous tweets of war mask the violence, pain and suffering caused by wars and depict war as something that can be laughed at. Ukraine’s use of humor may thus have a negative long-term impact on digital publics and their acceptance of wars as a foreign policy instrument.  

For more on the role of humor in digital diplomacy click here

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Each week, I publish a list of interesting articles, essays and reports that may be of interest to the digital diplomacy community. This week-

1. Meta has created a way to watermark AI-generated speech (MIT Technology Review)
2. Immersive technology, blockchain and AI are converging — and reshaping our world (World Economic Forum)
3. EU to take further action against Apple over digital market rules, Breton says (Reuters)
4. US unveils draft plan to restrict investment in Chinese technology (The Financial Times)
5. Technology has changed money-laundering (The Economist)
6. Are you 80% angry and 2% sad? Why ‘emotional AI’ is fraught with problems (The Guardian)
7. Best summer books of 2024: Technology (The Financial Times)
8. UN chief warns of rising cybersecurity incidents and malicious use of digital technology (EuroNews)
9. How generative AI could reinvent what it means to play (MIT Technology Review)

Some Light Reading- Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire, James Wycliffe Headlam

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Each week, I publish a list of interesting articles, essays and reports that may be of interest to the digital diplomacy community. This week-

1. How Big Tech Is Killing Innovation (The New York Times)
2. Why does AI hallucinate? (MIT Technology Review)
3. Does what happens on your iPhone still stay on your iPhone? (The Guardian)
4. China Is Losing the Chip War (The Atlantic)
5. What research actually says about social media and kids’ health (The Washington Post)
6. Ukrainian robot drone gets Starlink connectivity to combat Russia (Cyber News)
7. McDonalds Remove AI from Drive Thrus (BBC News)
8. China has become a scientific superpower (The Economist)
9. AI Could Be a Lifeline for Journalism – or a Rope to Hang Itself (Haaretz)

Some light reading- After Lockdown: A Metamorphosis, by Bruno Latour

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