December 17, 2024 — The Past Year at CIGI
Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
CIGI offers expert research and policy analysis at the intersection of technology and international governance.
We invite you to take a look back at CIGI’s work in 2023–2024. The pace and range of technological advancement, a rapidly changing geopolitical environment and global uncertainty continued to pose challenges for international governance this year — CIGI’s fellows and contributors provided research, insight and analysis on these and other pressing issues.
“During the past year, I have been speaking with leaders about how to harness innovation and at the same time ensure appropriate guardrails to uphold fair markets, human rights, democratic norms and institutions. CIGI is uniquely equipped to tackle these issues.” Read the message from Jim Balsillie, Chair, CIGI Board of Directors.
“Our global network of CIGI fellows is producing influential research that informs policy debates and shapes future governance frameworks, as do ongoing partnerships with Canadian universities, governments, international institutions, foundations and other think tanks. Canada’s role as chair of the G7 in 2025 is a great opportunity for driving international policy directions, including on data and digital governance, and CIGI intends to play an active role.” Read the message from Paul Samson , CIGI President.
Preparing for Next-Generation Information Warfare with Generative AI
“Modern conflicts increasingly involve the weaponization of information and the manipulation of human behaviours and perceptions. The rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) and its integration into individuals’ daily lives and societies’ inner structures promises to not only augment and accelerate, but also complicate these trends.”
In this paper, Eleonore Pauwels aims to “demonstrate two important shifts that will help us to recognize and understand this emerging warfare for what it truly is: an attack on humanity itself.”
Why Global South Countries Need to Care About Highly Capable AI
Highly capable AI could be among the most transformative technologies the world has ever seen. While this radical technology is being built primarily in Global North countries, its impacts are likely to be felt disproportionately in those Global South countries with long-standing vulnerabilities.
In this paper, Cecil Abungu , Marie Victoire Iradukunda , Duncan Cass-Beggs , Aquila Hassan and Raqda Sayidali consider six ways in which highly capable AI could interact with these vulnerabilities, and argue that all stakeholders who care about those who live in Global South countries must pull on the levers available to them with the goal of influencing the ongoing development of highly capable AI.
Trump 2.0: Clash of the Tech Giants
“In 2016, tariff man couldn’t care less about tech. Newly elected US President Donald J. Trump knew that the people who created and ran America’s tech giants were richer and smarter than him. Moreover, they had different values....So, not surprisingly, his first term was characterized by disputes with many tech giants, including Facebook and Amazon.”
During the 2024 election, a significant number of tech leaders and venture capitalists, alienated by some of the Biden administration’s actions, supported Trump. In this op-ed first published by Fortune, Susan Aaronson foresees deep divisions among the tech companies that are courting the next US administration, and offers a few predictions as to what Trump 2.0 might do.
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“Taking on a company with a market cap of over US$2 trillion (C$2.8 trillion) is already big news, but to understand the true significance of the Google case we need to look at the last time the bureau went to the mat to stop an alleged abuse of dominance.”
Read Keldon Bester ’s National Post op-ed: “The Google case shows Canada’s Competition Bureau is meeting the moment.”
The BRICS Nations Reach a Crossroads
“BRICS, a twenty-first-century grouping of emerging economies across several continents, has demonstrated Gen Z-like dynamism, ambition and success. Indeed, in less than two decades, the BRICS nations have surpassed the GDP of the Group of Seven (G7), added several new members and outlined an agenda for development and global governance. Today, BRICS needs the world, and the world needs BRICS.”
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Sanjay Bhattacharyya outlines some of the perceptions and narratives surrounding these emerging economies since 2001, their expanding influence, and what might be ahead for these nations now at a crossroads.
Libraries and Research Institutions Will Need Strong AI Governance
“With the rise in the use of AI, and the too-often rushed adoption or over-adoption of AI tools without proper appraisal of their effects, research institutions, and the precious human knowledge and records they hold, are put at risk.”
In this opinion, Matthew da Mota, Ph.D. takes a look at the benefits and risks of AI deployment in the “libraries, archives and other institutions on which we rely to support the collection, preservation and dissemination of human knowledge....If we wish to preserve research institutions as repositories of human knowledge and spaces of exploration, we must think deeply about how AI might change them.”
More from the Hub
The Digital Policy Hub at CIGI is a collaborative space for emerging scholars and innovative thinkers from the social, natural and applied sciences. Here are the most recent working papers published by Hub fellows from the summer 2024 cohort.
Dana Cramer: “Digital Regulatory Networks and Evolving Internet Governance Spaces”
Matthew da Mota, Ph.D.: “Standards as a Basis for the Global Governance of AI in Research”
Read the papers, and follow the links on the Hub webpage to learn more about the Hub scholars and their work!
T7: The Call for Abstracts Is Open!
CIGI is organizing the Think7 (T7) process during Canada’s Presidency of the G7 in 2025.
We invite experts from G7 and other countries to submit abstracts of policy briefs focused on the main policy areas of the T7 Canada Task Forces. The chairs and co-chairs of the Task Forces will select high-quality abstracts and work with the authors to develop them into Policy Briefs for consideration to be shared with the G7 as background material for the T7 Final Communiqué, which will be presented to the Canadian Presidency ahead of the G7 Summit.
Thank you for reading!