Posts Tagged ‘Xerox PARC’
“As the servants of the Machines are becoming a privileged class, the Machines are going to be enormously more powerful”*…
Technological sovereignty is a nation’s ability to create, control, and own (or reliably source from reliable alllies) the technologies, infrastructure, and data essential to national security and economic growth.
Concerns with technological sovereignty date back to at least the 17th century (when, for instance, European mercantilist states banned the export of textile machinery to protect domestic monopolies and maintain a favorable balance of trade). They characterized much of the 20th century (as nations built up indigenous defense industries to ensure military independence).
In our 21st century, the one-two punch of the Trump tariffs and his attack on Iran (and the effective closure of the Straights of Hormuz), with the supply chain disruptions attendant on them, have raised the issue of technological sovereignty anew– and with a vengence. In our interconnected, interdependent– thus vulernable to disruption– world, China and the U.S. are in the lead; but experts project slow advance in national tech sovereignty over the next several years.
But this time around, Francesco Crespi and his co-authors argue, the Big Tech corporate monopolies/oligopolies in both China and the U.S. have emerged as even more important players (than their historical analogues have been). Their increasing dominance of private R&D, the increasing centrality of privately-controlled digital technology, their resultant control over knowledge, infrastructures, and key technologies such as telecoms, cloud computing, and AI. have made them central to nation’s futures, even as the Big Tech players (as corporations) have different imperatives.
Crespi, et al. unpack this state of play and propose a typology of technological sovereignty that takes into account the degree of technological dependence on Big Tech, the nature of the relationship between states and digital companies, and, consequently, a nation’s capacity to align the activities of these companies with its own strategic objectives. They summarize:
This paper has examined TS at a historical moment in which the control of critical technologies, infrastructures and knowledge is increasingly concentrated in a limited number of digital corporations. Its starting point was a conceptual tension in the existing debate. TS is commonly defined as the capacity of a state, or a federation of states, to access and provide critical technologies without incurring one-sided structural dependence (Edleret al., 2023). Yet this definition implicitly assumes that sovereignty is ultimately held and exercised by public authorities. The argument developed in the present paper is that this assumption has become increasingly problematic. In core domains such as cloud computing, AI, data infrastructures, satellite systems and digital services for defence, the effective control of technological capabilities is often exercised by private corporations whose interests, strategies and governance mechanisms only partly overlap with public objectives.
The empirical evidence discussed in the paper points to three connected transformations. First, the long-term retreat of public research and the expansion of intellectual property regimes have shifted the centre of gravity of innovation systems towards large private actors. The rise of ICT and platform-based business models has reinforced this tendency by allowing a small group of firms to accumulate data, proprietary knowledge, network advantages and infrastructural assets on a global scale. Second, the hierarchy of corporate R&D has changed substantially since the early 2000s. Digital firms, especially from the United States and China, now occupy the leading positions among global R&D spenders and dominate strategic technological areas such as AI, cloud and software ecosystems. Third, this concentration is infrastructural as much as technological. The control of data centres, cloud availability zones, platforms, operating systems and search engines gives Big Tech firms a systemic role in the functioning of economies, public administrations and security apparatuses (Coveri et al., 2025).
As a result, this concentration of techno-economic power modifies the relationship between the state and private capital. Public authorities no longer simply procure technologies from firms operating in competitive markets. In many cases, they depend on proprietary ecosystems that set standards, store data, provide computing capacity, update software and mediate access to essential digital functions. This produces a form of structural lock-in that is particularly severe in dual-use and security domains. The state can retain formal authority while losing part of the operational capacity required to exercise it. Under these conditions, TS cannot be evaluated only by measuring the presence of advanced technologies within a territory; it must also be assessed by asking who owns, controls and governs the infrastructures and knowledge through which those technologies are produced and deployed.
The analysis of the military-digital complex further strengthens this conclusion (Guarascio and Pianta, 2025). The digitalisation of warfare has made the capabilities of Big Tech increasingly indispensable for military and intelligence activities. Cloud infrastructures, AI systems, cyber-defence tools, satellite connectivity and battlefield data services have become essential components of contemporary security systems. At the same time, public procurement, defence contracts and battlefield experimentation reinforce the technological and market position of these firms. Hence, the resulting relationship is one of mutual dependence, but it is not necessarily symmetrical. Governments need access to digital infrastructures and capabilities that they often do not control internally, while Big Tech firms use military and security demand to consolidate their technological advantages, expand proprietary ecosystems and increase their bargaining power vis-a-vis public authorities. This gives concrete substance to the notion of privatised TS (Abels, 2026).
Building on this analytical and empirical framework, the paper proposes a typology for interpreting the notion of TS according to these structural transformations. In particular, it distinguishes between strong and weak technological sovereignty and between private-driven, public-driven and public-private-driven governance arrangements. This distinction matters because the same technological capability may have different economic and political implications depending on the distribution of control across states, domestic firms, foreign firms and hybrid institutional arrangements.
They conclude:
Taken together, these findings suggest that TS should not be assessed only by asking whether a country possesses advanced technologies. It should also be assessed by examining how control is distributed and governed across the state, domestic firms, foreign firms and hybrid governance arrangements. The broader implication is that private-driven TS is not neutral from a welfare standpoint. It may increase innovation speed and geopolitical capacity, but it can also redirect technological change towards rent extraction, militarisation and proprietary lock-in. On the opposite, public-driven technological sovereignty can better preserve public-good objectives, but public institutions should possess adequate technical, financial and organisational capabilities, while public-private technological sovereignty can work when public conditionality is strong; otherwise, it may degenerate into the socialisation of risk and the privatisation of control. A welfare-oriented strategy for TS should therefore prioritise public and collective control over essential technological infrastructures, strengthen public R&D and procurement capabilities, impose interoperability and open- standard requirements, and ensure that critical data, patents and infrastructures generated with public support remain accessible for public purposes.
The central policy question, therefore, is not simply how to become technologically sovereign, but how to prevent the pursuit of sovereignty from becoming a vehicle for the privatisation of the very capabilities on which welfare, democracy and long-term development depend. Technological sovereignty can strengthen resilience, strategic autonomy and collective welfare only if it is embedded in institutions capable of governing technological change in the public interest. Without such institutions, the language of sovereignty may legitimise new forms of dependency: dependence on domestic monopolies in some countries, dependence on foreign platforms in others, or dependence on public-private arrangements in which public authorities finance
strategic projects while private actors retain control over their future trajectories. A research and policy agenda on TS should therefore place ownership, governance and accountability at the centre of the analysis, alongside capabilities and geopolitical positioning.
Eminently worth reading in full: “Technological Sovereignty, Big Tech, and the Military-Digital Complex” via @ssrn.bsky.social. (Full PDF here.)
See also: “Technology sovereignty as an emerging frame for innovation policy. Defining rationales, ends and means” and “Reconciling open science with technological sovereignty“
And for a look at one of the moving parts of the puzzle, one that underlines the importance of Crespi’s closing suggestions: “Elon Musk and SpaceX’s Futurist Coup.”
(Image above: source)
* J.R.R. Tolkien, The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien
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As we develop deftly, we might might send connected birthday greetings to a man who was instrumental in the development the promise/threat of Big Tech as today we know it: Mark Weiser; he was born on this date in 1952. A comouter scientist and CTO of Xerox PARC, he is is widely considered to be the father of ubiquitous computing, a term he coined in 1988, when he described a future in which personal computers would be replaced with tiny computers embedded in everyday “smart” devices and their connection via a network.
“We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us”*…
AI is on the march, with implications, TBD, for… well, for everything. Nayef Al-Rodhan ponders its potential impact on philosophy…
Around the world, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is seeping into every aspect of our daily life, transforming our computational power, and with it the manufacturing speed, military capabilities, and the fabric of our societies. Generative AI applications such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, the fastest growing consumer application in history, have created both positive anticipation and alarm about the future potential of AI technology. Predictions range from doomsday scenarios describing the extinction of the human species to optimistic takes on how it could revolutionise the way we work, live and communicate. If used correctly, AI could catapult scientific, economic and technological advances into a new phase in human history. In doing so it has the potential to solve some of humanity’s biggest problems by preventing serious food and water scarcity, mitigating inequality and poverty, diagnosing life-threatening diseases, tackling climate change, preventing pandemics, designing new game-changing proteins, and much more.
AI technology is rapidly moving in the direction of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), the ability to achieve human-level machine intelligence, with Google’s AI Chief recently predicting that there is a 50% chance that we’ll reach AGI within five years. This raises important questions about our human nature, our sentience, and our dignity needs. Can AI ever become truly sentient? If so, how will we know if that happens? Should sentient machines share similar rights and responsibilities as humans? The boardroom drama at OpenAI in late November 2023 also deepened the debate about the dangers of techno-capitalism: is it possible for corporate giants in the AI space to balance safety with the pursuit of revenues and profit?
As AI advances at a breakneck speed, ethical considerations are becoming increasingly critical. Sentient AI implies that the technology has the capacity to evolve and be self-aware, in doing so feeling and experiencing the world just like a human would. According to the British mathematician Alan Turing, if the human cannot distinguish between whether it is conversing with an AI or another human, then the AI in question has passed the test. However, given AI’s sophisticated conversational skills and ability to give the impression of consciousness, the Turing Test is becoming too narrow and does not grasp all the nuances of what makes us sentient and, more broadly, human. To stay on the front foot of technological progress, we need to supplement the Turing Test with transdisciplinary frameworks for evaluating increasingly human-like AI. These frameworks should be based on approaches rooted in psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, the social sciences, political science and other relevant disciplines.
We do not yet have a full understanding of what makes a thing sentient but transdisciplinary efforts by neuroscientists, computer scientists and philosophers are helping develop a deeper understanding of consciousness and sentience. So far, we have found that emotions are one of the important characteristics needed for sentience, as is agency or intrinsic motivation. A sentient AI would need to have the ability to create autonomous goals and an ability to pursue these goals. In human beings, this quality has evolved from our intrinsic survival instinct, while in AI it is still, for now, lacking. According to recent studies, a sense of time, narrative, and memory is also critical for determining sentience. A level of sentence comparable to humans would require autobiographical memory and a concept of the linear progression of time. In current AI systems, these capabilities are limited – but recent developments raise uncomfortable philosophical questions about whether sentient AI should share similar rights and responsibilities in the event that it becomes a reality. And if so, how does one hold the technology accountable for their actions? And how will we define – legally and ethically – sentient AI’s role in society? We currently treat AI technology and machines as property, so how will this change if they are granted their own rights? There is no clear-cut answer, but as I argued in ‘Transdisciplinarity, neuro-techno-philosophy, and the future of philosophy’, we should attribute agency to machines whenever they appear to possess the same qualities that characterise humans. I also believe that machines ought to be treated as agents if they prove themselves to be emotional, amoral, and egoist.
These debates, however they unfold, will clearly have deep implications on the future of philosophy itself. In ‘Transdisciplinarity, neuro-techno-philosophy, and the future of philosophy’ I make the case that it is a short step from AI’s present capabilities to its potential future use developing novel philosophical hypotheses and thought experiments. It is therefore not unthinkable that future AI systems could break new ground in the field of normative ethics, helping pinpoint moral principles that human philosophers have failed to grasp. However, we should be mindful that their conception of morality or beauty, for example, may have nothing in common with ours, or it may supersede our own capacities and reflections. This could limit the ability of sophisticated artificial agents to answer long-standing philosophical questions, however superior they may be to the most advanced human intellectual output. We should consider how these developments are likely to impact how we understand the world around us, both in terms of the subject matter and of the theorising entity involved. Artificial agents will no doubt be put under the microscope and will be studied alongside the human mind and human nature: not just to compare and contrast, but also to understand how these artificial entities relate to – and treat – one another, and humanity itself. There is also the question of how human philosophers will react if and when AI-steered machines become superior philosophical theorisers. Will flesh and blood philosophers be forced to compete cognitively with entities whose intellectual abilities vastly supersede our own? Will AI systems overtake our limited human reasoning and reflective capacities? If this happens, what does this mean for our own human agency, the control we have over our lives and the future of our societies?…
… Powerful AI technologies will progressively increase our capabilities, for good or ill. We therefore need to be clear-sighted about the AI governance frameworks urgently needed to futureproof the safe use of AI. The recent high drama at OpenAI, whose founding mission is “to ensure that artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity”, gave us a glimpse of the main rift in the AI industry, pitting those focused on commercial growth against those uneasy with the potential ramifications of the unbridled development of AI. However well-motivated AI governance schemes might be, they are less robust than one would hope. At the same time, self-regulation by global tech companies is becoming increasingly difficult given the large sums at stake and the economic and political influence of these companies.
With this in mind, we must keep an open mind not just about the immediate man-made dangers of AI technologies but also their potential to redefine what it means to be human. They will shape how we understand and engage with the world, in doing so making us reevaluate our place in it. Our chances of survival as a species and the likelihood of our existence in a free, independent, peaceful, prosperous, creative and dignified world will depend on the future trajectory of AI. Our historical yearning for longing and belonging hangs in the balance. To protect citizens from potential harm and limit the risks, AI should be regulated just like any other technology. We must also apply transdisciplinary approaches to make sure that the use and governance of AI is always steered by human dignity needs for all, at all times and under all circumstances. AI’s trajectory is not predetermined, but the clock is ticking and humanity may have less time than it thinks to control its collective destiny…
Eminently worth reading in full. Whether or not one agrees with the author’s specific conclusions, his larger point– that we need to be mindful and purposive about the deployment of AI is surely well-taken: “Sentience, Safe AI and The Future of Philosophy: A Transdisciplinary Analysis,” from @SustainHistory in @oxpubphil.
See also: “Thinking About AI, Before AI Disappears” from Quentin Hardy‘s new newsletter, Technohumanism. (source of image above).
* Father John Culkin, SJ, a Professor of Communication at Fordham University (and friend of Marshall McLuhan, to whom the quote is often incorrectly attributed)
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As we think about thinking, we might recall that it was on this date in 1979 that Apple began work on the Lisa, which would become the world’s first commercial computer with a graphical user interface.
Originally intended to sell for $2,000 and ship in 1981, the Lisa was delayed until 1983 and sold for $10,000. Utilizing technology ahead of its time, its high cost, relative lack of software, and some hardware reliability issues ultimately sank the success of the Lisa. Still, much of the technology introduced by the Lisa (itself rooted in the earlier work of Doug Engelbart [and here] and Xerox PARC) influenced the development of the Macintosh as well as other future computer and operating system designs: e.g., a bitmapped display, a window-based graphical user interface, icons, folders, mouse (two-button), (Ethernet) networking, file servers, print servers, and email.
“The tribalizing power of the new electronic media, the way in which they return to us to the unified fields of the old oral cultures, to tribal cohesion and pre-individualist patterns of thought, is little understood”*…
Nokia was dominant in mobile phone sales from 1998 to around 2010. Nokia’s slogan:
Connecting people.It was amazing to connect with people in the late 90s/early 2000s. I don’t think we were lonely exactly. But maybe meeting people was somewhere between an opportunity, something novel, and, yes, a need – suddenly it was possible to find the right person, or the right community.
So, the zeitgeist of the early 2000s.
I ran across a previous zeitgeist in an article about Choose Your Own Adventure books. They appeared and became massively popular at the same time as text adventure computer games, but neither inspired the invention of the other. How?
The real answer may lie far deeper in the cultural subconscious… in the zeitgeist of the 1980s.
1980s: you.
2000s: connection.
2020s: ?
Zeitgeists don’t lead and zeitgeists don’t follow.
I think when we spot some kind of macro trend in establishment consumer ads, it’s never going to be about presenting people with something entirely new. To resonate, it has to be familiar – the trajectory that the consumer is already on – but it also has to scratch an itch. The brand wants to be a helpful fellow traveller, if you like.
I wonder what the zeitgeist of the 2020s will be, or is already maybe. What deep human need will be simultaneously a comfort and an aspiration? There should be hints of it in popular culture already. (If I knew how to put my finger on it, I’d be an ad planner.)
If I had to guess then it would be something about belonging.
There was a hint of this in Reddit’s 5 second Super Bowl commercial which went hard on one their communities, r/WallStreetBets, ganging up to bring down hedge funds. Then we’ve got a couple of generations now who grew up with the idea of fandoms, and of course conspiracy theories like QAnon too. If you squint, you can kind of see this in the way Tesla operates: it’s a consumer brand but it’s also a passionate, combative cause.
Belonging to a tribe is about identity and strength, it’s solace and empowerment all at once. And also knowledge, certainty, and trust in an era of complexity, disinfo, and hidden agendas.
Given that backdrop, it’s maybe unsurprising that the trend in software is towards Discord servers and other virtual private neighbourhoods. But how else will this appear? And is it just the beginnings of something else, something bigger?
“1980s (you), 2000s (connection). What’s the 2020s zeitgeist?” From Matt Webb (@genmon)
* Marshall McLuhan
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As we double down on diversity, we might send well-connected birthday greetings to Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider; he was born on this date in 1015. Better known as “J.C,R.” or “Lick,” he was a prominent figure in the development of computing and computer science. He was especially impactful Considered the “Johnny Appleseed” of computing, he planted many of the seeds of computing in the digital age– escpecially via his idea of a universal computer network to easily transfer and retrieve information which his successors developed into the internet.
Robert Taylor, founder of Xerox PARC‘s Computer Science Laboratory and Digital Equipment Corporation‘s Systems Research Center, noted that “most of the significant advances in computer technology—including the work that my group did at Xerox PARC—were simply extrapolations of Lick’s vision. They were not really new visions of their own. So he was really the father of it all.”
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