The Bridge - Issue 3, 2023 - 15

Feature
Addressing the Digital Divide and Mitigating
the Risk of AI by People-Centered,
Collaborative Digital Regulation
Mei Lin Fung and Jascha Stein
Abstract
The digital divide continues to persist, with profound negative
impacts on people's lives such as poorer health outcomes,
social isolation, and reduced access to jobs and education. We
explore the various and complex reasons for the digital divide,
including regional, demographic, and event-driven factors,
highlighting the urgent need for agile and precise policy
interventions. To address this challenge, we propose a valuebased,
participatory approach to digital regulation, synergizing
technological opportunities with a humanitarian ethos.
We introduce methodologies like the Cross-Sector Digital
Regulatory Sandbox, Independent Trust Agents, and
Prosperity Data Networks, creating an artificial intelligence
(AI)-supported, people-centered digital world. By prioritizing
regional collaboration, public involvement, and the inclusion
of Small Medium Enterprises, we envision bridging the digital,
economic, and social divides. Our research underscores the
importance of tangible and intangible societal contributions
and maps a route to a globally equitable digital future
enhanced by AI, where technology augments human
capabilities and reinforces resilient, inclusive,
prosperous societies.
I. Introduction
" The international community has a long history of responding
to new technologies with the potential to disrupt our societies
and economies.... The AI for Good summit, convened in
Geneva last month, brought together experts, the private
sector, UN agencies, and governments to help ensure the
groundbreaking technology serves the common good. ...
We must work together for AI that bridges social, digital, and
economic divides, not one that pushes us further apart. I urge
you to join forces and build trust for peace and security " .
Antonio Guterres UN Secretary General July 21, 2023 [1]
Today, digital technology has revolutionized the way we
connect, creating a world where communication is instant
and borders are transcended. Mobile phones, the devices
and symbols of this global unity, have brought people closer
than ever before, but they have also exposed a worrying
and widening divide. While digital integration extends
across the global North and South, reshaping lives, families,
businesses, and institutions, the expanding use of technology
simultaneously creates a profound digital divide that persists
in various forms.
This divide is not just a technological challenge but a complex
societal issue that demands immediate attention to sidestep a
preventable crisis. The digital divide stretches across regional,
demographic, and socio-economic boundaries, contributing
to disparities in access to technology, information, jobs,
healthcare, education, and opportunity. While we expected
bridges to connect and bond people living in different worlds,
digital bridges highlight and expose stark differences when
people living in poverty and facing disasters and hardship
watch videos of wealth, waste, and indifference. The mingling
is often discordant, causing people, families, and communities
to be caught in a tumultuous crossfire between contrasting
values and ideals, a collision of western science and
ancient philosophies.
Moreover, the digital evolution has led to a blurring between
our homes, workplaces, and community spaces, while also
widening the gap in capabilities between those with access
to technology and those without. Children with less access
to technology fell behind in schooling during COVID.[2]
The
promising renaissance of digital innovation is now being
overshadowed by the realization that digital tools often best
serve elite for-profit entities, restricting opportunities for many,
particularly the marginalized, women, poor, rural, elderly,
handicapped, and indigenous.
Amid this complexity, the rise of AI adds another layer to the
dilemma. While many tout the new horizons AI promises,
others raise alarms about its potential risks, including
exacerbating the digital divide. AI's transformative potential
can either bridge or widen the gap, making the response to
these challenges a matter of profound societal significance.
The future of our humanity cannot be sorted out based only
on maximizing profit or power. People make decisions and
act for many reasons, not all of which can be simultaneously
optimized for the individual, for the family, or the community.
Therefore, we call attention to the critical need for a peoplecentered,
collaborative approach to digital regulation. By
introducing concepts like the Cross-Sector Digital Regulatory
Sandbox, Independent Trust Agents, and Prosperity Data
Networks, we identify practical ways to leverage technology's
immense potential while addressing the complex and
nuanced challenges of the digital divide. We, the people, must
be involved in developing digital regulation that serves the
people with participative governance, emphasizing peoplecenteredness
and integrity. Our goal is to actively address
and humanely and lovingly close the digital divide, crafting
a globally equitable digital future that enhances human
capabilities and where technology serves as a bridge rather
than a barrier. We now have the tools to practically plan and
engineer a path to a world where digital inclusion is a driving
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The Bridge - Issue 3, 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Bridge - Issue 3, 2023
