scholarly journals Talking AI into Being: The Narratives and Imaginaries of National AI Strategies and Their Performative Politics

2021 ◽  
pp. 016224392110300
Author(s):  
Jascha Bareis ◽  
Christian Katzenbach

How to integrate artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in the functioning and structures of our society has become a concern of contemporary politics and public debates. In this paper, we investigate national AI strategies as a peculiar form of co-shaping this development, a hybrid of policy and discourse that offers imaginaries, allocates resources, and sets rules. Conceptually, the paper is informed by sociotechnical imaginaries, the sociology of expectations, myths, and the sublime. Empirically we analyze AI policy documents of four key players in the field, namely China, the United States, France, and Germany. The results show that the narrative construction of AI strategies is strikingly similar: they all establish AI as an inevitable and massively disrupting technological development by building on rhetorical devices such as a grand legacy and international competition. Having established this inevitable, yet uncertain, AI future, national leaders proclaim leadership intervention and articulate opportunities and distinct national pathways. While this narrative construction is quite uniform, the respective AI imaginaries are remarkably different, reflecting the vast cultural, political, and economic differences of the countries under study. As governments endow these imaginary pathways with massive resources and investments, they contribute to coproducing the installment of these futures and, thus, yield a performative lock-in function.

Author(s):  
Timothy Matovina

Most histories of Catholicism in the United States focus on the experience of Euro-American Catholics, whose views on social issues have dominated public debates. This book provides a comprehensive overview of the Latino Catholic experience in America from the sixteenth century to today, and offers the most in-depth examination to date of the important ways the U.S. Catholic Church, its evolving Latino majority, and American culture are mutually transforming one another. This book highlights the vital contributions of Latinos to American religious and social life, demonstrating in particular how their engagement with the U.S. cultural milieu is the most significant factor behind their ecclesial and societal impact.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 183-212
Author(s):  
Agung Kurniawan Sihombing ◽  
Rika Ratna Permata ◽  
Tasya Safiranita Ramli

In the rapid technological development, physical boundaries have begun to disappear. The internet has created a ‘free culture’. In addition, the era is challenging the copyright concept along with the emergence of ‘digital copyright’. It has become the main commodity of Over-the-Top services providing means of communication and entertainment through the internet. Content streaming service like Netflix uses films, as well as other cinematographic works, as its main commodities. OTT Streaming media helps to protect copyright holders' rights that previously have been violated by illegal streaming sites on the internet. Unfortunately, it also raises a new question: how digital copyright-objects can be protected in this kind of service. Without physical form, copyright object can be distributed easily on the internet, and it may lead to right violations. To answer this problem, the authors aim to describe the digital copyright protection on OTT Streaming Content Media in Indonesia and compare them to the 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of the United States of America using a descriptive-analytical approach. This study employed a normative juridical approach with secondary data. The results of this study indicate that digital copyright protection in Indonesia is still centered on conventional copyright objects, and a sui generis law is needed to provide better protection for digital copyright objects.


Baltic Region ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 4-22
Author(s):  
V. N Konyshev ◽  
E. M. Skvortsova

Defence cooperation between Poland and the United States significantly affects the security agenda of Russia, the Baltic region, and Europe as a whole. On the one hand, Poland intends to become a key partner of the US in ensuring European security. On the other hand, it has ambitions to take the leading position in the security area among the Baltic States. The Polish leadership sees an additional advantage in expanding military cooperation with the United States, regarding it as a jumping board to accelerating its economic and technological development. This article examines a mechanism underlying defence cooperation between the US and Poland, i.e. lobbying Poland’s interests in another state. This allows Warsaw to actively promote its interests in the US. The research methodology employed includes the periodisation of Polish lobbying activities in the US and an empirical study of lobbying based on analysis of original documents, many of which have been analysed for the first time. It is shown that, under the existing party system, Poland will not abandon strategic partnership with the United States, primarily in security and defence. Over the study period, Poland quickly gained experience in promoting its interests in the US through direct lobbying, showing flexibility in negotiations, relying on the two-party support in the US Congress, successfully coordinating the activities of its governing bodies and various corporations which are submitted to tight state control.


Author(s):  
I. Danilin

The “technological war” between the United States and China that started in 2017–2018 raises a number of questions about the future role of technological development as a factor in relations between superpowers. Analysis shows that for the United States this conflict is caused by changing balance of risks and benefits of the liberal model of globalization due to the rise of China`s power and growing geopolitical tensions between the two nations. In this context, emerging, especially digital, technologies appear to be a new battlefield between superpowers. Within the realist framework, actors consider emerging technologies as a key factor for strengthening their global postures. This, among other things, contributes to securitized technological agenda and strengthens its geopolitical dimension. Neo-technonationalism has become the platform that integrates different processes and goals into new U.S. policy. Although historically neo-technonationalism took its roots in Asia, the evolving market situation prompted the United States to rethink existing approaches and to upgrade the techno-nationalist dimension of its policy. Considering similar policies of China and the EU (i. e. the European digital sovereignty policy), this trend shapes new realities of technological “blocs”, the struggle for expansion of technological platforms, and technological conflicts. Taking into account prospective development needs of the global economy and future specification of mutual interest areas, as new digital technologies mature, the ground for normalizing the dialogue between the superpowers will emerge. However, at least in the U.S.–China case, this issue will be complicated by geopolitical contradictions that leave little room for any serious compromise.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Biegelbauer ◽  
◽  
Christian Hartmann ◽  
Wolfgang Polt ◽  
Anna Wang ◽  
...  

In recent years, mission-oriented approaches have received growing interest in science, technology and innovation (STI) policies against the background of two developments. First, while so-called “horizontal” or “generic” approaches to research, technology and innovation policies have largely been successful in improving the general innovation performance or the rate of innovation, there are perceived limitations in terms of insufficiently addressing the direction of technological change and innovation. Second, “grand societal challenges” emerged on policy agendas, such as climate change, security, food and energy supply or ageing populations, which call for thematic orientation and the targeting of research and innovation efforts. In addition, the apparent success of some mission-oriented initiatives in countries like China, South Korea, and the United States in boosting technological development for purposes of strengthening competitiveness contributed to boosting the interest in targeted and directional government interventions in STI. Against the backdrop of this renewed interest in mission-oriented STI policy, the OECD has addressed the growing importance of this topic and launched a project looking into current experiences with Mission-Oriented Innovation Policy (MOIP). The present study on MOIP in Austria was commissioned by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Energy, Mobility, Environment, Innovation and Technologiy (BMK) and comprises the Austrian contributions to this OECD project. The study aims at contributing Austrian experiences to the international debate and to stimulate a national debate on MOIP.


Author(s):  
Mark Whitehead ◽  
Rhys Jones ◽  
Martin Jones

To talk about technology when exploring the relationship between states and nature may seem paradoxical. The paradoxical nature of this assignment is twofold. First, many argue that to speak of the technological is to speak of the anti-political—here technology is understood not as something of the state, but as an external arena that can simultaneously be used by the government to verify its policies, or, if unchecked, undermine the governing capacities of politicians (Barry 2001: ch. 1). Others claim that technology is the antithesis of nature—if nature is the un-produced eternal substratum of existence, technology is a socio-cultural artefact, a fragment of produced nature and a mechanism for ecological transformation (Luke 1996). Despite this apparent conundrum, this chapter argues that technology provides a crucial basis upon which many of the interplays between the state and nature continue to be expressed. Within his recent book on the links between states, government, and technologies—Political Machines—Andrew Barry (2001: 9) suggests that we need to think of technologies in two related but distinct ways. He argues that our first recourse when considering technologies is often to technological devices—or those labour-saving and labour-enhancing gadgets, tools, instruments, and gizmos that make new socio-economic practices possible and speed-up existing exercises (see also Harvey 2002). Secondly, Barry discerns a broader understanding of technology, which incorporates a wider set of procedures, rules, and calculations in and through which a technological device is animated and put to use. In this chapter we explore the technological devices and supporting technological infrastructures through which the contemporary politics of state– nature relations are being played out. We interpret the role of technology within state–nature relations in two main ways. First, we explore the ways in which various technologies have been synthesized with and within the state apparatuses in order to enhance governments’ capacities to manage nature. The role of technology in facilitating the governance of nature can be conceived of at a number of levels. It can, for example, be related to a Marxist reading of technologies as tools/machines deployed in the physical transformation of the natural world (Harvey 2002: 534).


2019 ◽  
Vol 97 (Supplement_3) ◽  
pp. 69-70
Author(s):  
Jessica Eise

Abstract Animal agriculture is an important component of global food security, with animal products serving as a foundational component of many American diets as well as playing a crucial role the sustainability of food production and environmental well-being. Yet animal welfare is one of the most contentious issues in the United States, producing heated, polarizing public debates. Meanwhile, national trends across all major issues demonstrate an increasing loss of common ground between political parties, with no indication of an imminent turnaround. The contentious nature of animal welfare and animal science public debates, as well as indications of increasing polarization across the nation, presents a worrisome dilemma in the face of a growing need to make meaningful societal progress around food security. Research has long demonstrated that contentious arguments, disdainful debates or reiteration of facts often backfire and cause people to double down on their beliefs, with extensive literature in psychology showing that humans are goal-directed information processors who tend to evaluate information with a directional bias toward reinforcing pre-existing views. In this article, I demonstrate how research on the role of values in risk perception can provide a helpful frame for building understanding between competing groups around contentious animal agriculture issues, inform more effective communication efforts and build potential for progress-oriented collaboration.


2020 ◽  
Vol 48 (5) ◽  
pp. 596-611
Author(s):  
Jason Barabas ◽  
Benjamin Carter ◽  
Kevin Shan

Analogies have captivated philosophers for millennia, yet their effects on modern public opinion preferences remain largely unexplored. Nevertheless, the lack of evidence as to whether analogies aid in political persuasion has not stopped politicians from using these rhetorical devices in public debates. To examine such strategic attempts to garner political support, we conducted survey experiments in the United States that featured the analogical arguments being used by Democrats and Republicans as well as some of the policy rationales that accompanied their appeals. The results revealed that analogies—especially those that also provided the underlying policy logic—increased support for individual health coverage mandates, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and even single payer national health proposals. However, we demonstrated that rebutting flawed analogies was also possible. Thus, within the health care arena, framing proposals with analogies can alter policy preferences significantly, providing a way to deliver policy rationales persuasively.


1956 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 487-507
Author(s):  
Francis Dvornik

Interest in Slavic and mid-European studies,* so long neglected, is growing considerably in the United States. Unfortunately it concentrates mostly on modern history. In Slavic studies, too much time is often devoted to the history of Russia since the Revolution, and to the analysis of the new social and political order established in that country under the influence of non-Slavic social ideas which had originated in the West, and especially in Germany (K. Marx and Lasalle) in the nineteenth century. The earlier evolution of Russia, other Slav nations, and their mid-European neighbors, is still undeservedly neglected. It is a mistake. In the Middle Ages, the Slavic nations, the Hungarians, and the Rumanians played a prominent role in the civilizing of Europe. The memories of their glorious past helped the Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Serbs, Bulgars, Magyars, Rumanians and also the small Albanian nation to survive the difficult period of oppression by foreign rulers and inspired their national leaders in their fight for independence and freedom.


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