Governments cannot be expected to police every aspect of their citizens’ private lives, but their use of artificial intelligence (AI) on social media needs some measured level of monitoring and regulation.
If copyright and intellectual property rights can be said to be relatively, fairly and successfully regulated, then the protection of personal information, intellectual property, e-commerce, child protection and many other applicable pieces of legislation cannot be said to be too difficult to apply under conditions of infringement of citizens’ rights and possible threats to state security.
Policy regimes on information sharing and knowledge production are by their nature not easy to draft, engage with, implement and monitor, but have to be promulgated, monitored and reviewed or amended.
People are allowed to use AI on social media in sometimes irresponsible ways to the detriment of the crucial processes of learning, research and development.
WhatsApp group administrators need to be advised that sharing of AI-generated information from the internet by their group members should somehow be controlled and regulated through statutory provisions.
Members should constantly be reminded that sharing of information and articles from AI and search engines such as Google, Yahoo and many others should be motivated to the satisfaction of group administrators and that reasons for doing so should be advanced.
So, this layer of responsibility puts an obligation squarely on the shoulders of Whatsapp group administrators to adjudicate over eligibility of shared AI content to be accepted for further dissemination.
If the chairs of boards or trusts and executives of entities are expected to be prudential in the execution of their oversight roles, then group administrators, too, should be obligated to play ethically and morally sound adjudication roles.
This, notwithstanding the free-for-all and fluid nature and essence of social media, still challenges governments to fairly set checks and balances in place if moral degeneration, mis-education and disinformation are to be minimised or circumvented.
Information from AI sources cannot be depended upon or treated as authentic in their not-so-easy to verify and validate nature as they may be subject to manipulation for malicious intents and purposes
Despite ideological opposition to prescriptive corporate standards, which are also applicable to the information and communication technology (ICT) sector, international conventions and recommendations from global bodies such as the UN should certainly be ratified and passed by member states.
They can then augment nationally endorsed recommendations from the latest tools of corporate governance, such as the King Report.
Information from AI sources cannot be depended upon or treated as authentic in their not-so-easy to verify and validate nature as they may be subject to manipulation for malicious intents and purposes.
Allowing people to download tons of information from AI and other search engines for personal, educational, psychological and political reasons is not wrong, but such information ought to further the groups’ developmental interests and enhance the purposes for which such loose networks were formed in the first place.
Otherwise, loads of unexplained, downloaded content discourages members from reading and engaging with it.
In short, explained downloaded content motivates group members to interact with it by asking further questions and starting debates with fellow group members in pursuit of the goals for which the WhatsApp groups were started.
This will also help to minimise intra-group bullying, deceptive intellectual grooming, unhealthy competition, patronage, ageism and other chauvinistic tendencies among group members.
I have no idea if the government of national unity’s departments of technology & communications, basic/higher education, state security, police and sports, arts & culture are aware of their roles and responsibilities in monitoring what gets into, processed, gets out, consumed and internalised from knowledge production processes and ICT sources.
There has been some overwhelming evidence that anti-revolutionary campaigns and “leaderless revolutions”, through which regime changes have been effected, were mounted using AI-generated content and malicious use of social media.
To attempt to critically analyse this assertion, most socialists and left-leaning nationalists would immediately decry the abuse of some rights-based practices such as freedom of speech and other fundamentalist models of cult practices, market-fundamentalism, western religion and ethno-national politics we are living to currently witness.
Mlulami Mike Ntutela writes in his personal capacity as a creative and an expository writer.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.