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In a previous blog post, I sought to examine a possible Country-of-Origin Effect in Generative AI applications. In the late 1990’s nation branding scholars began exploring the Country-of-Origin Effect. Rooted in marketing research, the Country-of-Origin Effect suggested that consumer labels impact individuals’ willingness to buy products. For example, the “Made in China” label was once... Continue Reading →
Power is often defined as the ability to direct or influence the behavior of others or the course of events. An interesting question is whether AI has power and how this power is exercised. One way in which the power of AI may be conceptualized is the ability of Generative AIs such as ChatGPT to... Continue Reading →
Scholars have long since asserted that nations have images. Although scholars differ on what these images consist of, and whether these images can be managed, they nonetheless agree that like consumer brands, nations elicit cognitive associations in people's minds. Upon hearing the name “Germany”, for example, certain associations may spring to people’s minds be it... Continue Reading →
The rapid development of AI tools has caused a frenzy in foreign ministries (MFAs) as diplomats across the world are trying to identify the risks and benefits brought about by artificial intelligence tools such as ChatGPT, Mistral, Claude, Gemini and DeepSeek. Diplomats’ attempts to grapple with the professional and societal ramifications of AI has taken... Continue Reading →
Throughout the 1980s, noted British historian Eric Hobsbawm delivered a series of lectures examining the academic study of history, and the state of social history, his chosen field. Hobsbawm’s lectures offer much needed insight into the study of digital diplomacy, in general, and the study of AI’s potential impact on diplomacy. For example, Hobsbawm argued... Continue Reading →
Sociologist Manuel Castells famously argued that digital societies relentlessly strive to annihilate time and space. Time is annihilated by the reversal of traditional roles and life experiences. Such is the case with a 30-year-old tech CEO that manages 50-year-old employees or in the view of retirement as a second adolescence, a period of experimentation, of... Continue Reading →
Exploring Digital Diplomacy 