COVID, Artificial Intelligence, and the Global Order
Speaker: Wright, N. (Intelligent Biology)
Date: 14 April 2020
Speaker Session Summary
SMA hosted a speaker session presented by Dr. Nicholas Wright (Intelligent Biology) as a part of its SMA General Speaker Series.
The novel coronavirus pandemic is upending societies and their assumptions. Going forward, one of its most significant legacies will be the way that the pandemic dovetails with another major global disruption of the last few years—the rise and spread of digital surveillance enabled by artificial intelligence (AI). Public health measures have always depended on surveillance, and East Asian countries have demonstrated that a robust regime of surveillance is essential to fighting a pandemic. Now and after covid, Western liberal democracies must develop “democratic surveillance” that harnesses the huge upsides of digital surveillance – without sacrificing democratic values. In the global competition to shape our AI futures, the stakes are high. If democracies fail to turn the future of global surveillance in their favor, digital authoritarian competitors stand ready to offer their own model to the world.
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY:
Dr Nicholas Wright is affiliated with University College London (UCL), Georgetown University, Intelligent Biology and New America. His work combines neuroscientific, behavioural and technological insights to understand decision-making in politics and international confrontations, in ways practically applicable to policy.
He works with the US and UK Governments. On artificial intelligence (AI) he advises Europe’s largest tech company, SAP, and various parts of the US government (e.g., Joint Staff) as well as UK Government (e.g., Royal Navy). DARPA used his definition of Grey Zone conflict for their new AI programme on the Grey Zone. Foreign Affairs chose a recent piece on AI and the global order for its Top 10 of 2018 on the net. His recent edited book is entitled “AI, China, Russia and the Global Order.”
He was previously an Associate in Nuclear Policy at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington DC; in functional brain imaging at UCL and in the Department of Government at the London School of Economics; and was a clinical neurologist in Oxford and London. He has many academic (e.g. Proceedings of the Royal Society), general (e.g.the Atlantic, Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs), and policy publications (e.g. www.intelligentbiology.co.uk) and has appeared on the BBC and CNN.
He has a medical degree from UCL, a BSc in Health Policy from Imperial College London, Membership of the Royal College of Physicians (UK), and an MSc in Neuroscience and a PhD in Neuroscience both from UCL.
Dr. Wright’s relevant Foreign Affairs article can be found at https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2020-04-06/coronavirus-and-future-surveillance
Site-wide Search
Search all site content, including all NSI and SMA publications, SMA Speaker series, NSI Team member bios, services, portfolio projects, company info, and more.
