South Asia’s first framework for the ethical use of AI in newsrooms, and journalist collectives

Screenshot As SAWM's Facebook page notes, on 23 June, South Asian Women in Media - Sri Lanka chapter hosted a roundtable discussion on the Draft Guidelines for the Ethical Use of AI in Media, the outcome of an extensive consultative process with a number of media publications and other key stakeholders, including the Deputy Minister …

Fragments, not architecture: how a Digital Rights Foundation report’s Sri Lanka chapter misreads a pervasive surveillance state

Screenshot A critical reading of the Sri Lanka chapter by Prihesh Ratnayake and Omar Rajarathnam, from Factum, published  in the Digital Rights Foundation’s report ‘Unveiling Cyber-Surveillance Technologies in South Asia’. The chapter names some of the right objects, but features them as episodes in a chronology rather than robustly reading them as parts of a …

Lived experience over liked algorithms: The enduring primacy of human agency in peacebuilding

I was invited by the Social Research Institute at Chulalongkorn University (Thailand's top university, and very highly ranked globally) to deliver a presentation on artificial intelligence, and peacebuilding on the sidelines of the 3rd UNESCO Global Forum on the Ethics that was also held in Bangkok. The organisers wanted something written to include in what's …

The perils of AI utopianism: A critique of AI’s role in challenging authoritarianism

ificial intelligence as a potent tool for democracy advocates worldwide. Drawing on ideas from Anthropic co-founder Dario Amodei's consequential October 2024 essay Machines of Loving Grace, Prior explains how AI systems programmed with democratic values could function as digital advisers for activists, essentially creating a "ChatMLK" that synthesises wisdom from nonviolent resistance literature. Prior warns …

From English to Sinhala, and Tamil: The potential of Google NotebookLM’s intellectual capital redistribution

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" is the most famous of the late science fiction doyen Arthur C Clarke's three laws. That, in a nutshell, is what Google's NotebookLM was, and it's now even more magical. As of 29 April, NotebookLM, including the podcast generation, is available in 50 languages, including Sinhala, and …

From Sri Lanka to Ukraine: The limitations of AI in peace negotiations

Nearly a quarter of a century ago - in 2002 - I was the lead architect of a set of software services to support a one-text negotiations process conceived of, and led by Hannes Siebert in Sri Lanka. As far as I know, this was the first of its kind application of technology in the …

ICODR podcast: Sanjana Hattotuwa on technology, disinformation, and peace

Screenshot The ICODR Podcast, from the International Council for Online Dispute Resolution (icodr.org), covers the rapidly growing field of online dispute resolution. Hosted by Ian Macduff, the podcast interviews ODR experts from around the world to discuss the latest developments in the field, with an eye to ethics, culture, security, and impartiality. I joined the …

Sri Lanka’s 2022 Aragalaya studied through social media lenses

Delivered a lecture on 6 March 2023 over a Twitter Space, moderated by Priyanga Hettiarachi, on my study of Sri Lanka's Aragalaya over 2022. Download the complete slidedeck here or as a PDF here. You'll need to have the Powerpoint open to follow along with the lecture. Note that the Powerpoint version has video, and …

Invisible incendiaries

“We learn geology the morning after the earthquake” – Ralph Waldo Emerson In the early 80s, and the start of what would be a nearly 30-year brutal war, I was kept awake at night by two things. Planes and ambulances. With fresh military offensives by the Sri Lankan Army incurring heavy casualties, Airforce planes airlifted …

The nature and nurture of disinformation

First published on the ICT4Peace Foundation website. ### For us the land is matrix and destroyer,Resentful, darkly knownBy sunset omens, low words heard in branches.— Poem in the Matukituki Valley, James K. Baxter “In the woods we return to reason and faith.”— Ralph Waldo Emerson Aotearoa New Zealand’s inaugural hui on countering terrorism and violent extremism, He …