Digital world

  Up until the mid 2010s, the general trend around the world was that corruption had started to decline somewhat, which led many to assume that it would soon become a thing of the past. In spite of the fact that this is the case, a general decline in law and order that has been going on since 2016 has led to corruption making a comeback, and it might even get far worse than might have been the case otherwise. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that 23 countries have seen their corruption levels become the worst they’ve ever been in the past 30 years or so.  This data  is  coming   out of   Transparency   International , and it also points to a rise in authoritarianism all around the world. However, it bears mentioning that democratic countries aren’t immune to this backsliding either. The UK, Sweden, the Netherlands and Iceland are all democratic countries, but they all hit their lowest scores on the index...

  Thanks to the rapid advances made in the field of AI, autonomous weapons systems, or killer robots in colloquial terms, might soon become a reality. As a result of the fact that this is the case, the UN has adopted a resolution to make these systems less effective than might have been the case otherwise. These types of weapons can acquire targets without any human involvement whatsoever, which makes them an especially dangerous outcome of the current AI race. With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that  Harvard law lecturer  Bonnie Docherty recently spoke out about this issue. She described autonomous weapon systems as systems that rely on sensor inputs to determine targets rather than human input. It turns out that they have actually been used multiple times in the past, although they are not quite as sophisticated as they would eventually end up becoming. Systems used during the ethnic conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region ...

  Bill Gates spoke at the World Economic Forum in Davos recently and addressed the growing divide between the Global North and the Global South. He mentioned that the resource needs of developing countries were outstripping the resources that they are capable of generating, and as a result of the fact that this is the case, they need more help from developed nations than ever before. It is important to note that  he urged  the richest countries, governments, people and companies to provide aid to these struggling nations. In the 1970s, the United Nations requested economically powerful countries to donate 0.7% of the overall income the generated each year in the form of aid, and Gates referred to this while making his statements. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, just four countries have met this criteria, namely Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Luxembourg. If the Global South is to be saved, it’s imperative for more countries to join this...