The launch of ChatGPT, a Generative AI tool developed by the tech company Open AI, spurred a global discussion on the risks and benefits of artificial intelligence. Notably, ChatGPT is referred to as an “AI” tool, yet it is not really an example of Artificial Intelligence. ChatGPT does not think. ChatGPT does act. ChatGPT has... Continue Reading →
Monday’s Digital Diplomacy Must Read List
Each week, I publish a list of interesting articles, essays and reports that may be of interest to the digital diplomacy community. This week- Musk, Indonesian health minister, launch Starlink for health sector (Reuters) It is dangerously easy to hack the world’s phones (The Economist) Palantir holds first-ever AI warfare conference (The Guardian) OpenAI putting... Continue Reading →
From “Wolf Warrior Diplomacy” To “Lone Wolf Diplomacy: The New Logic of Digital Public Diplomacy
At a recent international conference I was asked- how does relationality help understand public diplomacy in today’s world? To answer this question, we must first characterize todays’ world. It is a world that is prone to crises, a world that is marked by wars, it is a complex world as a crisis in one world... Continue Reading →
Monday’s Must Read List
Each week, I publish a list of interesting articles, essays and reports that may be of interest to the digital diplomacy community. This week- What the future holds for driverless cars (BBC News) Resistance Is Futile, But Maybe Not With AI (Bloomberg) It’s Time to Give Up on Ending Social Media’s Misinformation Problem (The Atlantic)... Continue Reading →
The Drone Wars: How Ukrainian Drones Are Reshaping War Coverage
In the early 1990s, scholars coined the term “The CNN Effect” referencing the impact that CNN had on American foreign policy. Scholars asserted that issues which rose to prominence in CNN were soon addressed by American policy makers. In this way CNN shaped the priorities of the White House and the State Department. CNN was... Continue Reading →
Is Digital Diplomacy Disruptive?
In a classic episode of the television show “Yes Prime Minister”, the Civil Servant Humphrey Appleby explains the logic of British diplomacy saying: “The Foreign Office is pro-Europe because it’s really anti-Europe. The civil service was united in its desire to make sure that the Common Market didn’t work. That’s why we went into it.... Continue Reading →
Monday’s Must Read List
Each week, I publish a list of interesting articles, essays and reports that may be of interest to the digital diplomacy community. This week- White House will fight deepfakes with cryptographic verification (Cyber News) Russia using Elon Musk’s Starlink on Ukraine front line, says Kyiv (Financial Times) France uncovers a vast Russian disinformation campaign in... Continue Reading →
The Old Man? Biden’s Digital Branding
A brand may be considered as a set of associations that are elicited by a product or company. For example, when people see the Apple company logo certain associations come to mind be it “slick design”, “innovation” or “expensive”. The logo of the clothing company H&M elicits a different set of associations including “young”, “affordable”... Continue Reading →
Diplomacy in the Age of Post-Reality
Last week, the Financial Times published an AI generated image of Presidents Putin and Trump kissing. The headline read “Fakes in the Post-Truth Era”. The term post-truth was first coined in 2016 by The Economist Magazine. The Economist was referring to the impact of social media on politics in general, and American politics in particular.... Continue Reading →
Practicing Diplomacy in the Attention Economy
Advertisers argue that attention is a finite resource. According to one study, individuals in the digital society are exposed to 8,000 advertisements a day. Given humans’ limited capacity for information processing, this barrage of advertisements is mostly ignored or forgotten within seconds. This means that if commercial brands are to compete successfully for the attention... Continue Reading →