The Political Economy of Global AI Regulation

This paper by Sabhanaz Rashid Diya examines how platform and artificial intelligence (AI) governance are deeply intertwined in shaping the global political economy of AI. Drawing on insights from a CIGI-convened international workshop, it argues for a multi-level rights-based framework to address persistent inequalities in the global AI supply chain and regulatory capacity gaps in the Global Majority.

In this paper, S. Yash Kalash explores how central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) can help countries safeguard fiscal sovereignty in an increasingly digital financial world. By enabling real-time monitoring of government expenditures, programmable transfers and transparency, CBDCs can strengthen national control over public finance without the risk of systemic or political fallout.

The Digital Policy Hub at CIGI is a collaborative space for emerging scholars and innovative thinkers from the social, natural and applied sciences. Follow the links on the Hub webpage to learn more about the Hub scholars and their work.

Read the latest working paper from the Hub, by Ashley Ferreira: “A Warning Label on the Use of AI Safety Evaluations.”

Fourteen years after recommendations to modernize Canada’s payments system, delays in implementing the Real-Time Rail and bank-dominated governance continue to leave the system costly, uncompetitive and unfit for the digital age. In a new commentary piece, authors Patricia Meredith and Robert Fay argue that Canada must move beyond simply launching RTR, calling for a network-oriented and inclusive governance. Read the full article to learn how decisive government action can modernize payments quickly and affordably.

In this commentary, author Robert Diab examines efforts to create a web protocol to prevent AI from summarizing online content, arguing that such measures are misguided and unlikely to succeed. He explains that AI summaries, now a primary use case for tools like ChatGPT and Google AI Overviews, provide net benefits for users while remaining within fair use and platform speech boundaries. Read on to understand how AI summaries represent an evolution in information access.

CIGI will be taking a short winter break, so there will be no newsletter on December 30. We wish all our readers a wonderful holiday season and look forward to reconnecting on January 6!