Moderating a global conversation about navigating uncertainty

This spring, I moderated a learning call for the Global Network of Internet & Society Centers (NoC): "Navigating Uncertainty in a Technology-Driven World: Comparative Perspectives from Across the Globe." Technological acceleration, political unrest, and environmental pressures are creating deep uncertainty everywhere, but they play out differently from place to place. I wanted to bring those differences into one conversation and ask what shared priorities might emerge.

The panelists from the NoC and beyond came from a range of regions and disciplines and were Lionel Brossi (University of Chile), Yaniv Benhamou (University of Geneva), Fabiola Uwera (CERTA Foundation, Rwanda), Mélanie Dulong de Rosnay (CNRS, France), and David Levine (Elon University School of Law, USA). Together they offered a rich comparative picture. Lionel argued for treating young people as co-creators in governance, not only as vulnerable users. Yaniv explained why AI regulation is likely to fragment globally in ways that GDPR did not. Fabiola described Rwanda's iterative approach of deploying innovation, observing outcomes, and then legislating based on evidence. Mélanie raised the "paradox of openness," in which open licensing has enabled large-scale data extraction without returning value to the communities that produced the data. David reflected on institutional stresses in the U.S. and proposed local field hearings to surface community impacts.

A few themes ran across the conversation. Academic expertise needs to reach policymakers in usable forms. We need to engage the public, journalists, artists, designers, and students, not only policymakers. And we need to communicate without jargon, including through visual and artistic forms. Those themes resonate with my own work bringing students into technology governance conversations.

The call produced recommendations that will inform the network's next roadmap. They include piloting field hearings at member centers, building digital rights curricula, and linking established centers with those in the Global South to co-design AI research agendas. The full summary is available here.