Ruth Shillair

Agile and adaptive methods of regulation and civil society participation are increasingly identified as institutional mechanisms that may assist in addressing the governance challenges associated with artificial intelligence (AI). These considerations are frequently addressed at a theoretical level and often examined independently. This paper integrates these perspectives to explore how agility, adaptivity, and civil society participation are beginning to be organized and how they may contribute to AI governance.

How can communications policymakers move beyond reactive, fear-driven responses to artificial intelligence (AI), which is characterized by either rapid, perhaps uncritical, adoption (FOMO: Fear of Missing Out) or reflexive prohibition (FOBO: Fear of Being Obsolete), toward stakeholder-informed governance frameworks that enable strategic, contextually appropriate, and democratically accountable AI integration? Instead of top-down mandates for broad use, or prohibitions without context, what framework should be in place to assist users in understanding risks and rewards of informed use? Little is known whether these users are adopting AI because of missing out on the benefits it brings, or whether their use or non-use choices stem from concern about becoming obsolete. Using AI-conducted interviews with 1,250 individuals who use AI in some way, this research examines the discussions for evidence of FOMO and FOBO and how these constructs shape AI use. FOMO and FOBO were significantly and positively correlated, co-occurring as participants adopted AI into their workflows. Adoption was happening often with little official guidance or training. Those with high self-efficacy in AI use made more deliberate, strategic choices in how they applied it. The findings support policy that informs and trains users in the safe and ethical use of AI models. Through democratic, informed, user-centered policy, there is the opportunity for more purposeful and strategic use of AI.

This paper outlines a learning system to govern generative AI in ways that advance human flourishing. Multimodal reflexive governance offers a framework to evolve multiple modes of governance across multiple institutional, spatial, and time dimensions. It preserves the ability of developers and users to explore the tremendous potential of AI while mitigating undesirable outcomes. The analysis starts by examining the role and limitations of current proposals to respond to the challenges of AI governance by increasing the agility and adaptivity of governance. Our discussion shows that such measures can address some of the governance issues, but they are rarely sufficient to safeguard important goals. The proposed framework overcomes these shortcomings, but it is demanding for AI policymaking. We briefly explore the possible consequences of failing to develop a workable learning system.

Since the reversal of Roe v. Wade in the Summer of 2022 in the United States, rising concerns have emerged towards privacy, data protection, and digital trust concerning reproductive health data. Such health data has become both a commodity in the commercial world and source of discovery in legal proceedings that attempt to incriminate women for seeking abortions. Digital footprints created via location data, private conversations on platforms, and internet search history lead to a constant state of surveillance that threatens privacy and freedom of movement for women throughout the United States. We conducted an online survey via Amazon Mechanical Turk in order to identify the largest user concerns towards privacy of health tracking and period tracking applications. A large number of users were concerned with the privacy of their reproductive information and were found to have deleted period tracking applications due to these concerns. Additionally, we sought to identify what actions would lead users to feel more comfortable using these applications, identifying the largest being the localized storage of this data on their device. These findings suggest that users may be more likely to use these applications if their privacy concerns are addressed.

Data on cybersecurity capacity building efforts is critical to improving cybersecurity at national levels. Policy should be informed not only by measures that allow internal assessment of strengths and weaknesses that enable cross-national comparisons. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and its Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) has used a standardized survey that has been adapted and used in multiple national assessments by the Global Cyber Security Capacity Centre. This adaptation includes an addition of open field coding assessments that rely heavily on trained experts and interactions with national focus groups. These assessments are checked using multiple coders to increase reliability and reduce bias. This process of ‘structured field coding’ (SFC) is an approach to collecting and coding observations based on multiple methods, quantitative as well as qualitative. This approach differs from open field coding in providing a set structure for coding observations from the field based on established frameworks for assessment. The SFC process is explained along with a discussion of the origin and the advantages and limitations of this methodological approach. It can be used in a variety of studies but is presented here as a means to integrate data for cross-national comparative analyses. Its application to improving the reliability and validity of data collection across a region, such as the EU, would help stakeholders evaluate where they should invest resources to improve their cybersecurity capacity.

This chapter gives managers and decision makers guidance in prioritizing limited resources as they face the challenge of protecting stakeholders from growing online threats. Based on a comparative study of 80 nations, we have found a clear impact of cybersecurity education, awareness raising, and training (CEAT) on the vitality of internet use and services at the national level. CEAT encompasses one of five dimensions of a larger cybersecurity capacity-building model (the Cybersecurity Capacity Maturity Model for Nations or CMM) developed by the Global Cybersecurity Capacity Centre. This chapter briefly describes the education, awareness, and training indicators that compose this dimension of capacity building within the CMM and our cross-national analysis of the outcomes of CEAT on internet use. Controlling for contextual variables, such as the wealth of the nations and scale of internet use, the quantitative analysis shows a positive and statistically significant impact of CEAT on the vitality of internet use and services but also a distribution of CEAT scores that indicates key issues for low-income and developing nations. A qualitative analysis of responses from a sample of these nations is used to identify key reasons for their maturity levels in this area. Recognizing the lack of maturity in cybersecurity education, awareness raising, and training in most nations studied, the chapter offers suggestions for policy and practice to meet the need for more effective programs.

Though online banking has become more pervasive in U.S. society, little research has examined how different generational cohorts perceive and use online banking. This study examines differences in online banking perceptions and intentions across three generational cohorts in the U.S.: Silent and G.I. generation (SGI) (born 1945 or earlier), older Boomers (1946–1954), and Millennials (1977–1992). Guided by the Technology Acceptance Model and Protection Motivation Theory, it tests a model that identifies factors that influence each generation’s acceptance and use of online banking. An online survey of 558 U.S. MTurk workers within three generational cohorts provided data for this study. Findings showed that coping appraisals (i.e., coping self-efficacy and response efficacy) were positive predictors of online banking intentions via reduced barrier perceptions and increased trust perceptions for all ages. Nevertheless, threat appraisals were not negative predictors of online banking intentions via any online banking perceptions. Results also identified generational differences by showing that coping appraisals only increased online banking intentions via enhanced benefit perceptions for Boomers and Millennials, not SGIs. Furthermore, benefit perceptions mattered most to Millennials, followed by Boomers, and did not influence online banking intentions for SGIs. Trust mattered most to SGIs, followed by Boomers, and did not matter to Millennials. This study contributes to our understanding of factors that can help bring older consumers onboard with online banking compared to younger consumers.

The growing centrality of cybersecurity has led many governments and international organisations to focus on building the capacity of nations to withstand threats to the public and its digital resources. These initiatives entail a range of actions that vary from education and training to technology and related standards, as well as new legal and policy frameworks. While efforts to proactively address security problems seem intuitively valuable, they are new, meaning there is relatively little research on whether they achieve their intended objectives. This paper takes a cross-national comparative approach to determine whether there is empirical support for investing in capacity-building. Marshalling field research from 73 nations, the comparative data analysis: (1) describes the status of capacity-building across the nations; (2) determines the impact of capacity-building when controlling for other key contextual variables that might provide alternative explanations for key outcomes and (3) explores the factors that are shaping national advances in capacity-building. The analysis finds a low, formative status of cybersecurity capacity in most of the nations studied and also shows that relatively higher levels of maturity translate into positive outcomes for nations. The study provides empirical support to international efforts aimed at building cybersecurity capacity.