Summary
Walid Al-Saqaf is a Senior Lecturer at Södertörn University in Stockholm where he specializes in the use of the Internet and media technology for journalism, access to information, freedom of expresssion and public good. As a dual Yemeni/Swedish citizen, his passion is in promoting a strong and open Internet that netizens can build bridges between cultures and promote democratization and free speech across the globe.
As a computer engineering undergraduate student in the mid 1990s at the Middle East Technical University in Turkey, Walid designed YemenTimes.com as the first news website in his home country Yemen. In 2007, he launched YemenPortal.net as the first news aggregator and search engine of its kind in the Arab world to provide Internet users with the ability to get a wide spectrum of perspectives from various news sources on Yemen in Arabic and English. When the website was blocked by the Yemeni government in 2008 due to its open platform that allowed dissident voices to be heard, he developed Alkasir website censorship mapping circumvention solution, which was initially used to access YemenPortal.net, but which soon became widely used by Internet users in many states such as Iran, Syria, China and Saudi Arabia to bypass website filtering in those countries.
Source: Internet Society
OnAir Post: Walid Al-Saqaf
About
Biography
Featured by CNN, the Guardian, the Huffington Post and other media, Walid’s work was particularly useful during the Arab Spring when some authoritarian Arab regimes practiced pervasive Internet filtering of news and social media websites. He has also been active in supporting open Internet access and online free speech in developing countries through non-technical means such as advocacy campaigns and training. His efforts have earned him recognition through several awards including a TED 2012 senior fellowship and Örebro University’s 2010 Democracy Award.
Walid is also engaged in several initiatives to promote innovation and creativity in technology among the youth as he organized TEDxSanaa 2012 and 2013, founded Sanaa Hub as part of the Global Shapers Community of the World Economic Forum and co-founded and led Yemen’s Internet Society Chapter for which he built a robust core team that was able to make ISOC-Yemen one of the most active chapters in the Middle East. Walid’s unique position as a scholar based in Sweden as well as a pro-free speech cyber activist and software developer of Arab background have jointly helped him develop a wide a range of skills and expertise to contribute to technical and policy discussions around Internet-related issues on several platforms such as ICANN, RIPE, IGF, and the World Wide Web Foundation. This helped him build bridges between developing and developed countries when it comes to addressing key issues that concern Internet users around the world.
Beyond research, Al-Saqaf’s interests focus on the non-commercial use of ICTs and its impact on democracy and promotion of development. As a member of the global technical community, he is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Internet Society (ISOC) and is Vice President of the ISOC Blockchain Special Interest Group.
Source: Internet Society
Web Links
ITDF Essay, November 2023
AI’s success will require maintaining a delicate balance
Source: ITDF Webpage
AI’s success will require maintaining a delicate balance between its vast potential and the challenges it introduces
“By 2040 the ubiquity of AI will have reshaped numerous facets of our daily lives. Advanced personal AI assistants will likely be part of our routines, offering predictions and automations tailored to individual needs.
“The medical field is poised to witness significant advancements, with wearables and AI-driven virtual consultations becoming much more commonplace. The merging of human thought processes with computational capacities through brain-computer interfaces such as Elon Musk’s Neuralink project, if realized, could be a game-changer.
A major inflection point could be the evolving power dynamics; AI might decentralize power by equipping individuals with tools once exclusive to large entities, particularly if peer-to-peer cryptocurrencies become the norm for exchanging value. However, the risk of a few dominant entities controlling AI’s pinnacle remains unless a total transformation of how wealth is created is achieved, e.g., universal income and reduced economic inequality.
“This technological proliferation, however, also brings with it potentially grave challenges. The economy will undergo transformative shifts, birthing new professions while sidelining others, necessitating societal strategies for unemployment and creating new jobs and skillsets.
“Governance could benefit from enhanced AI capabilities, but the potential for misuse in surveillance and control by authoritarian regimes looms large, particularly in the realm of warfare.
“A major inflection point could be the evolving power dynamics; AI might decentralize power by equipping individuals with tools once exclusive to large entities, particularly if peer-to-peer cryptocurrencies become the norm for exchanging value. However, the risk of a few dominant entities controlling AI’s pinnacle remains unless a total transformation of how wealth is created is achieved, e.g., universal income and reduced economic inequality.
“While the efficiency gains and new opportunities AI offers are undeniable, concerns over data privacy, job displacement and diminishing human-to-human interactions persist. If the brain-computer interface is hacked, for example, then this may create a major risk where humans may be misled or take actions based on generated information.
“In essence, AI’s trajectory in the coming decades presents a delicate balance between its vast potential and the challenges it introduces. We must strive to minimize the risk while harnessing the best of what this revolutionary technology has to offer.”
This essay was written in November 2023 in reply to the question: Considering likely changes due to the proliferation of AI in individuals’ lives and in social, economic and political systems, how will life have changed by 2040? This and more than 150 additional essay responses are included in the report “The Impact of Artificial Intelligence by 2040”
