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(AGENPARL) – gio 30 marzo 2023 You are subscribed to Secretary’s Remarks for U.S. Department of State. This information has recently been updated, and is now available.
03/30/2023 04:01 PM EDT
Antony J. Blinken, Secretary of State
Washington, D.C.
Washington Convention Center
SECRETARY BLINKEN: Thank you. Well, good afternoon, everyone. Jeanne, thank you so much for the introduction and for helping to move us along today.
And I really want to first extend a very warm welcome to everyone who is here as well as to the many who are joining us online.
Not long after its invention, Thomas Edison said of electricity: “It holds the secrets that will reorganize the life of the world.”
Today, we are again living through a time when technology is reorganizing the life of the world, the world that we all share. Every country – no matter its form of government, no matter its geography, no matter its size or power – is being transformed by new and evolving tools from biotechnology altering the building blocks of life, to artificial intelligence changing the production of knowledge, to the devices that we’ve all got in our pockets redefining how we relate to each other as human beings.
The test we face as democracies is how we can shape this transformation in a way that maximizes its promise, that minimizes its dangers, and reinforces our core values.
So, today, what I wanted to do kick us off is to set out a few of the ways that we’re working to try to meet this test, working together in government, with partners in the private sector and civil society – a test that as we meet it today, I think will do much to shape many, many years to come.
President Biden likes to say that in many ways we’re at an inflection point where the decisions that we’re making now in the next few years are likely to shape the next decades. It’s one of those moments that comes along every few generations where we’re really at a point of inflection and our actions are going to make a big difference.
So first, we are focused on using technology to try to make our democracies a little bit healthier, a little bit more prosperous, a little bit more inclusive. We’re building on democracy’s core strengths – our openness, our transparency, our adaptability, and the faith that we place in our citizens to make the system work better, to actually deliver results.
Just a few examples of how governments here are using technology to shore up the foundations of democracy, to strengthen its institutions in ways that actually deliver results for people.
In the Maldives recently they introduced video technology that allows people to participate virtually in court hearings, freeing up time for judges, reducing costs for citizens.
In Estonia, as many of you know, citizens can go online to do everything from registering a new business, to paying their taxes, to requesting refills of medical prescriptions all within minutes.
After Malaysia adopted legislation lowering the voting age from 21 to 18, the government was able to automatically register people online who were newly eligible to vote. Participation in elections shot up 25 percent, giving voice to more than 3 million additional voters.
And of course, it’s not just governments that are using digital tools to improve people’s lives. Transparency advocates are creating open databases that allow members of the public to identify corruption in public works projects. Epidemiologists and researchers are sharing data to accelerate our understanding of deadly viruses and the creation of safe, effective vaccines. Climate scientists are using predictive models to help farmers make better decisions about when and where to plant, increasing agricultural productivity, reducing hunger.
Across these efforts, we’re working to make sure that all people have access to digital tools and their benefits because one of the things that history teaches us is that leaps in technology too often deepen instead of diminishing inequities in our societies. And we have to have that constantly in mind as we look at how we’re adapting and shaping the technologies of our time.
That’s why we’re making investments at home and around the world to try to close some of the digital divides – whether on gender, nationality, race, disability, geography, income, or any other factor – that perpetuate a lack of access to opportunity for underserved groups and underserved communities.
Here in the United States to take one example, as many of you know, we passed a bipartisan infrastructure bill that dedicates $65 billion to ensuring that everyone in our country has access to reliable, affordable high-speed internet – rural, suburban, urban; low, middle, high-income. We’ve already helped millions of lower-income Americans and their households pay their internet bills, because as President Biden says, high-speed connectivity is no longer a luxury; it’s a necessity.
And we’re helping partners around the world broaden access too, like the more than $260 million in financing the United States is providing to help upgrade infrastructure in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Rio is in the process of installing 5,000 public Wi-Fi access points, as well as public lighting systems that cut electricity consumption by up to 60 percent, while also lowering costs and cutting their emissions. And three-quarters of these investments will be made in neighborhoods where people live below the city’s average income level.
Second, we’re working with partners to update and establish as necessary rules and norms, so that technology is developed and used in ways that reflect our democratic values and interests.
That includes for old technologies, like the internet. We’ve long promoted an open, interoperable, secure, reliable internet – principles that created the conditions for the internet to grow into a dynamic force for learning, for connection, for economic opportunity.
But everyone in this room knows, and colleagues who are joining us online know, that the internet is also growing more closed, more insecure, more siloed by the day. More countries are putting up firewalls and shutting down access, using the internet to try to control speech, quash dissent, spread misinformation and disinformation.
So we are using all the tools in our kit – from software to hardware, from trade to diplomacy – to defend our longstanding vision and stand against these and other threats. A year ago, we launched the Declaration for the Future of the Internet. It reaffirms our commitment to a single, open “network of networks” that respects democratic principles and human rights. To date, more than 65 partners and counting have joined us in making this pledge – and taking action to make that pledge real.
We also recognize that we have to do better at addressing some of the risks that come with the open internet. People have important concerns about how platforms collect, exploit, and share our personal data, fan the flames of polarization and extremism, endanger women and girls, children, LGBTQI+ people, and other vulnerable groups.
Tackling these and other issues requires a delicate balance of the principles at the heart of our vision – such as between openness and security, between protecting speech and preventing incitement, between fostering innovation and limiting the power of Big Tech. And I think it’s more than obvious to say we do not yet have all the answers. We’re all working on them, thinking about them, struggling with them. But we have to engage this.
Our people and increasingly our companies are looking to democratic governments to help establish limits for how platforms can collect, use, and share citizens’ personal data. We have heard that message.
That’s why, in addition to using his authority to address these issues, President Biden has been urging Congress to pass strong bipartisan legislation to protect Americans’ privacy. The President has also made clear that we need to be able to hold platforms accountable when they fail to address the harms caused by their technology, from the content they spread to the algorithms that they use.
It’s also why we’re stepping up to shape the rules and guidelines around emerging digital tools, like artificial intelligence.
The rollout of AI chatbots in recent months has demonstrated how quickly this technology is evolving, how big of an impact it’s going to have on each of our lives. In October, we put out a Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights – five principles to try to guide the way we design, use, deploy automated systems in ways that protect our people and defend our democratic values.
These include the principle that people should be protected from unsafe or ineffective AI; that people should know when an automated system is being used and understand how it affects them.
We’ve also developed a risk management framework to give individuals, organizations, and societies practical guidance on how to measure and manage the risks of automated systems, and make AI that’s safe, that’s accountable, that’s fair, that protects privacy.
These principles and guidelines aren’t meant to be the final word in navigating the extraordinary complexities around AI and other emerging tools. We know the technology is changing too fast for that. And speaking as someone who’s in government – and again, you all know this, many from experience – government is constantly playing catch-up when it comes to technology. And at a time when things seem to be evolving more quickly than ever before, that game of catch-up is even more intense than ever before. But we have to find ways to create guardrails that will continue to strengthen and improve – that we’ll continue to strengthen and improve on together with partners.
Third big piece: We’re doubling down on investing in democracies’ ability to lead on technological innovation. Our ability to shape the digital landscape depends in significant part on maintaining our competitive edge in innovation. Democracies’ free flow of ideas and information gives us a built-in advantage, but we can’t take our own dynamism for granted. We have to continue to find ways to foster it, to catalyze it, to support it, to encourage it.
And that’s the basic idea behind the historic investment that President Biden and Congress have made through the CHIPS and Science Act, through the Inflation Reduction Act, through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. It’s the biggest investment America has made in generations in revitalizing key industries, recharging our manufacturing base, leading the global energy transition,and boosting basic research – something we’ve gotten away from in recent decades – while also bolstering the resilience and security of the supply chains that underpin every single one of these efforts.