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It has long since been argued that social media algorithms contribute to political polarization. Common wisdom has it that once algorithms identify a user’s political preferences, they ensure that the user is only exposed to content that is aligned with those preferences. Within this “filter bubble,” formerly known as an “echo chamber,” users enter a... Continue Reading →
Over the past few months, two social media trends have generated news headlines. The first trend suggests that social media is increasingly becoming less social. Across various age groups, individuals are posting less content online. When users do post content, it is usually disseminated among small groups of friends via WhatsApp groups or Instagram stories.... Continue Reading →
In recent months, a growing number of news articles have focused on the practice of prompt busting- a technique used to overcome AI guardrails. According to ChatGPT, guardrails are “rules, systems, and safeguards built into an artificial intelligence model to ensure that it behaves safely, ethically, and reliably.” The goal of prompt busting is to... Continue Reading →
By Giles Strachan and Ilan Manor In 1957, the physicist Hugh Everett proposed the Many-worlds Interpretation of reality. Quantum physicists had discovered that fundamental information about particles was unknowable until the particles were observed. At this point, reality re-asserts itself, as in the famous example of Schrödinger’s cat, which is both alive and dead until... 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 →
For nearly a decade, the term digital diplomacy has been closely associated with social media. In many MFAs, digital diplomacy units are actually tasked with managing social media empires that span hundreds of accounts across numerous platforms. Although social media has remained central to the practice of digital diplomacy, its use has changed over the... Continue Reading →
Note: This post was co-authored by Bar Fishman and Ilan Manor and was originally published on the USC CPD Blog. In recent years, the platform formerly known as Twitter, and now rebranded X, has lost millions of users. This process began following X’s acquisition by tech mogul Elon Musk during 2022. Musk’s contentious policies, which... Continue Reading →
The rapid and consecutive launch of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools over the past two years has generated a global frenzy. Large language models such as ChatGPT and Gemini have already amassed hundreds of millions of users and have been hailed as ushering in a new technological era marked by limitless data-driven insight and creativity. Global... Continue Reading →
Historian Eric Hobsbawm dedicated much of his academic work to exploring the impact of the past on present-day societies. For Hobsbawm, the past was always present. Yet the function that the past plays in the present could differ greatly. During times of upheaval, the past can serve as a roadmap or template for overcoming adversity.... Continue Reading →
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... Continue Reading →
Exploring Digital Diplomacy 