This week, we're reading about how disinformation has endangered population immunity for some diseases in the U.S., the sinister intent behind the Taliban's commitment to digital connectivity, and OpenAI's new election policies.
Is Vaccination Approaching a Dangerous Tipping Point? | JAMA Network
Online misinformation has real world consequences. FDA Commissioner Robert Califf and Director of the FDA Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research Peter Marks write that vaccine hesitancy has "deteriorated to the point that population immunity against some vaccine-preventable infectious diseases is at risk, and thousands of excess deaths are likely to occur this season due to illnesses amenable to prevention or reduction in severity of illness with vaccines." The authors argue that health care professionals are the most trust source to reverse this trend: "the best way to counter the current large volume of vaccine misinformation is to dilute it with large amounts of truthful, accessible scientific evidence."
The Taliban’s Curious Love of SIM Cards | Rest of World
This rather surprising piece on the Taliban's distribution of SIM cards to Afghan refugees illustrates two points: the importance of digital connectivity, even in the most dire of situations, and, more cynically, the ease of digital surveillance. It's a chilling assessment: "for the Taliban, the value of being able to track Afghanistan’s women and girls — who remain barred from working, being educated, or even visiting parks — is higher than the risk of giving them access to the world and its information."
Tech companies and politicians alike often hype AI's potential to cure disease, save lives, supercharge clean energy research, etc. This HBR article dates to 2022, but provides a great recap as to why AI tools fell short of expectations during the COVID-19 pandemic – and what we can do to learn from those disappointments.
Open AI ventured into the intersection of technology and elections in a blog post this week. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot of the policies seem to be adapted from those of social media platforms. The use of the ChatGPT that are 'out of bounds' would provide some comfort, except for the lack of clarify around enforcement (trained guardrails? It's well known that guardrails can be overriden).
The House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party put out this report in December on strategies to boost America's economic and technological competitiveness vis a vis China. We're paying particular attention to immigration and workforce development 'offensive' components of Pillar 3 ("Invest in Technological Leadership and Build Collective Economic Resilience in Concert with Allies").