Read about @spipau 's impressions from the WSIS and AI4Good conference. He reflects on our contributions to WSIS+20: in collaboration with @TimUnwin , he served as both a panellist and a moderator for a session hosted by the FAO.
Featuring insights from @raspberrypi @Mer__edith , OpenAI, and Geoffrey Hinton:
https://www.ict4d.at/2025/08/wsis20-high-level-event-and-ai4good-global-summit-2025/
What’s the local #AI ecosystem like in #Montreal, and what are some of the challenges they are tackling? Among the voices shaping it: Jackie Chi Kit Cheung, Associate Professor at McGill University, and Associate Scientific Co-Director at Mila – Quebec AI Institute, advancing natural language processing and better evaluation methods for AI systems. Connect: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jackie-chi-kit-cheung-08340090/?originalSubdomain=ca
WSIS+20 High-Level Event and AI4Good Global Summit 2025
I was privileged enough to visit this year’s World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and AI4Good in Geneva, Switzerland. Both organized by the ITU and happened in parallel. I have been there in the past and while the WSIS dates back quite some time, the AI4Good conference is rather new. It is puzzling to see how much more budget is available the new buzz-hyped AI conference while the WSIS is in comparison rather underfunded. The AI stage sparkles while the WSIS is just as always. The first hosts mostly players from the private sector and the latter focuses on the most marginalized on this planet.
I must admit that the AI hype was much stronger the last year when they promoted AI as the saviour to the failing SDGs – a rather ridiculous idea. At the WSIS, I was not any more the only Linux/FOSS user and there were more engineers attending, a welcomed change. Some where represented in the Fediverse and others actively promoted FOSS within the UN. I even chatted with someone about degoogleing Android phones by running custom ROMs to escape surveillance.
The attendees of the WSIS are usually a mix of policy makers, UN delegates, some civil sector and private actors discussing technology and its implications on the most marginalized. While most of them are experts in their own domains, such as agriculture, traditional media or education, they often lack the technical expertise to profoundly understand the technology behind their buzz words. Which often leads to discussion where engineers such as I role my eyes. As an example, I attended sessions about journalism and I have to admit that I got tired of journalists complaining on their iPhones via X tweets that their revenue crumbles and freedom of press is dying. If journalists still believe that their work is valued by surveillance capitalism, then they still lack a profound understanding on how big-tech exploits their business.
I attended a session by OpenAI where their speaker shared, that 40% of their users are under 24 years old and the number one thing they do is learning with ChatGPT. Which underlines the influence this technology has on our younger generation. The company promoted their OpenAI Academy where they train people on their products. OpenAI argued that future jobs such as programmers will not be needed any more and will get replaced by smart AI agents.
The Raspberry Pi Foundation drafted a different picture, the company behind Raspberry Pi computer. Since their beginning, they are invested in education and their speaker stated the following:
Find here their position paper titled Why kids still need to learn to code in the age of AI. They offer Computer Science and AI courses.
It was refreshing to listen to sound criticism behind the power structures of AI. Not the technology is the problem, but rather a small hand of too powerful people controling it to further increase the imbalance between the rich and the poor. AI can have a positive potential to work for the most marginalized, but as every technology, it is currently controlled by an elite to exploit the masses. Meredith Whittaker, the president of the Signal Foundation resonated a similar message. In her brilliant review, she pointed out that if AI agents are granted unlimited access to our systems, then their Signal Messenger cannot any more guarantee its secrecy. A massive implications for anybody who relies on encrypted communications such as governments, journalists, doctors, activists, minorities or advocates.
The final talk by Geoffrey Hinton turned quite dark. He argued that AIs are like atomic bombs and regulations are far too slow. We face an existential threat and human mankind might cease to exist as AI will take over and eradicate human mankind. Keep in mind that he holds a Turin Award, is a Nobel Laureate and one of the AI Pioneer – someone we should carefully listen to. He painted a scenario where we let loose an AI agent to act on our behalf. It will create sub-goals to reach its main task and will try to grab more power to better achieve the outcome. This will lead to an AI in every system on this planet and it will be superior to any human. It will develop a sense for survival, or has probably already one built in by us. Think of an AI battle robot where humans will drill an AI to survive and succeed at any cost. It will get threaten by us as we would like to turn it off at one point. We will become AI’s number one enemy and might not stand a chance. Geoffrey Hinton demands strong policy by the public sector, a framework for regulation: politicians need to be pushed to create strong regulation to audit every big AI system. He strongly argued against open source AI systems as he sees them as too dangerous and they should not be in the hands of anybody.
Contributions to WSIS
In collaboration with the ICT4D Collective, I was a panel member in our session Digital tech and the most marginalised: what still needs to be done?. It was a wonderful session and Tim wrote a profound blog post about the outcome. Truly a pleasure and honour, a big thank you to Tim for inviting me and it was great to collaborate with my dear colleagues.
I was also delighted to moderate the session WSIS Action Line C7: E-Agriculture organized by FAO of United Nations. A vivid discussion on how technology can support our farmers.
Paul acting as a moderator ©ITU/Pierre Albouy
The floral giants at #Mosaicultures won’t be the only ones taking over #Montreal this summer — #IJCAI2025 is bringing together the giants of #ArtificialIntelligence.
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Compartilhando uma perspectiva Rust, DeFi & ReFi
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Big moment for the Humanitarian AI for Good Summit!
スイス・ジュネーヴで開催されたAI for Good Global Summit でAmazon Web Services の CTO、Werner Vogels 氏がメインステージで我々HOT(Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team)の取り組みにスポットライトを当て、2010年のハイチ地震でのクライシスマッピングから最近のAI画像分析ツールfAIrの開発、ドローンマッピングの重要性など、AI を通じて地図作成をよりアクセスしやすく公平なものにするという我々の使命について熱く語ってくれました。感謝！！
Thanks, Werner!
https://youtu.be/K-AOgG6sc9Q?si=FCgKJQZbAufYjMZh
#DRONEBIRD #HOTOSM #OpenStreetMap #AI4GOOD #CrisisMapping #DronebirdsAreGo #FuruhashiLab #古橋研究室 #AoyamaGSC #青学 #GEOlab #Polimi
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AI is gaining traction in emerging economies—fueling healthcare access, crop optimization, and education. Contextual AI matters.
#EmergingTech #AI4Good #GlobalAI
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-ai-is-shaping-opportunities-in-emerging-markets/
#AI2 climate work featured in Nvidia https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/earth2-generative-ai-foundation-model-global-climate-kilometer-scale-resolution/ #ai4good
I'm excited - the evaluation data for BioDCASE has been released! https://biodcase.github.io/challenge2025/ New acoustic data from forests and oceans, for testing machine learning's ability to listen to wildlife! I'd love to know if your team will submit a solution to #BioDCASE. #machinelearning #ai4good #bioacoustics
Don't miss our #TSWebinar with RoundTable Technology on May 28 at 12:30pm PT to learn how your #nonprofit can achieve more goals using Microsoft’s #AI assistant, #Copilot.
🖥️ Explore real-world nonprofit use cases and success stories.
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New video lecture: "AI for wildlife sounds: How best to retrain deep learning models for bioacoustics" https://youtu.be/VC9XLvIbHKU (This is the talk I gave at the Urban Sound Symposium 2025.) #machinelearning #ai4good #bioacoustics
Join our #TSWebinar with RoundTable Technology on May 21 at 12:30pm PT, to learn how your #nonprofit can achieve more goals using Microsoft’s #AI assistant, #Copilot.
💡 Discover the benefits of using Microsoft 365 Copilot for #nonprofits and how to get started.
💡 Understand the basics of #GenerativeAI and its applications.
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AI is gaining traction in emerging economies—fueling healthcare access, crop optimization, and education. Contextual AI matters.
#EmergingTech #AI4Good #GlobalAI
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/how-ai-is-shaping-opportunities-in-emerging-markets/
Join our #TSWebinar with Tapp Network on May 20 at 10am PT to explore how #AI tools can enhance operational efficiency for #nonprofits.
Learn more and save your seat: http://spr.ly/6185Njg8J
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I'm really excited to be invited to the *2025 Nordic Workshop on AI for Climate Change* next week. Look at this list of topics in the schedule! https://climateainordics.com/events/2025-nordic-workshop #ai4good #climatecrisis
🔄Resta al comando #OpenAI: preserva il suo status di no-profit per guidare l'intelligenza artificiale nell'interesse pubblico! #AI4Good
🔗 https://www.tomshw.it/hardware/openai-fa-dietrofront-la-nonprofit-resta-al-comando-2025-05-06
Namo Drone Didi program was launched in 2023 to help rural women boost their income and boost India’s agricultural productivity—and although the program is still in its early days, I’m already impressed by its results."
