Tudor Mihailescu

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I'm heading to Rio de Janeiro tomorrow for the 🌎 G20 Summit, where some of global development's most pressing issues will be taking center stage. Follow my Devex coverage to learn more about why the G20 matters — and whether the leaders of the world's largest economies can move the needle on hunger, climate change, global debt, and beyond.

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ICYMI. We have posted VIDEO of today's lively conversation about the politics and economics of immigration @BrookingsInst with Madeline Zavodny, Tara Watson and Ruy Teixeira (with my summary of some of Elaine Kamarck's thoughts.)

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Big fan of this direction from Day One Ventures and Masha Bucher. One might wonder why it would be bad for the divide between society and technology to grow. There are many arguments to make, but I'd like to suggest one from a purely practical standpoint, one that should appeal even to people who believe technology primarily drives the future. Artists often play the role of integrators/synthesizers/sense-makers of what can be a confusing pull into the future (whether driven by technology, ideology, or otherwise) based on society's current conceptual frameworks. Keeping the divide small means a larger portion of the society has updated their concepts to align with the best models we have of the world. A larger portion of society with updated concepts means we have more people better equipped to tackle the challenges of the future. With that in mind, I'd expect a need to increase investment in artists broadly speaking as we increase investments in technology in order for technology to actually progress in solving important challenges as quickly as possible. Looking forward to seeing what comes next Jenny Chao! #art #artists #ai

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The @SpecialCompetitiveStudiesProject (SCSP) team has released a new report, "Vision for Competitiveness," drawing inspiration from NSC-68, a seminal 1950 policy document that outlined the US strategy during the Cold War. This new report by SCSP presents a decisive technology and national security strategy for the United States to maintain its global leadership between 2025 and 2030 through bolstering national strength, strengthening alliances, rebuilding deterrence, and catalyzing economic prosperity. The report emphasizes the critical importance of success within this timeframe and offers concrete policy recommendations across various sectors. Notably, it advocates for national "moonshot" programs in key innovation areas like AI, biotech, quantum computing, advanced networks, semiconductors, and energy, recognizing these technologies as crucial drivers of innovation power and prosperity. Similar to NSC-68, the "Vision for Competitiveness" report paints a picture of a world divided by competing ideologies.It acknowledges the need to re-evaluate US strategy in light of rapid technological advancements and escalating geopolitical competition. The report aims to galvanize the government and crystallize a new worldview and strategy to guide US policy in this challenging era. I encourage you all to read it here: https://lnkd.in/eGVmFZ69 #AI #nationalsecurity #innovation #tech #leadership #SCSPTech #VisionForCompetitiveness 

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Clause Out isn’t meant to replace protests or traditional activism. We’re building tech tools to organize public debate and translate citizen demand for change into actual reforms. The question we’re solving for: “How do we get our platform to broaden, ground, and accelerate policy development - ideally all at once?” This all came into focus this morning when we came across a protest gathering for more climate action. It took place in front of the building where Denmark passed its tripartite climate deal. While this deal is perhaps the first of its kind, it leaves climate activists and experts unsatisfied. Clause Out aims to channel these initiatives and ideas into concrete proposals. Advancing reform - on the margin, down to the clause. 💅 #BuildingWithThePublic - Day 90

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Are you interested or involved with Trust & Safety? We're discussing The Future of Trust & Safety next Tuesday in NYC during the latest All Tech Is Human gathering to bring together people across civil society, gov't, industry, and academia to tackle thorny tech & society issues. Join in. APPLY: https://lnkd.in/eT4V9vy5 This curated gathering will feature two panels, food/drink, and ample time to share knowledge and find sparks of collaboration. We just confirmed a Safety by Design panel around child safety that will feature Afrooz Kaviani Johnson (Child Protection Specialist at UNICEF), Dr. Rebecca Portnoff (Head of Data Science at Thorn), Sean Litton (President and CEO of the Tech Coalition), and moderator Matthew Soeth (All Tech Is Human). We also have a panel on Building the Next Generation in Trust & Safety, moderated by my colleague Sandra Khalil and featuring Jacob Silver (Sr. Data & Implementation Officer, Oversight Board), Alexis Crews (ex Meta, Founder of E-NOUGH Consulting), and Eirliani Abdul Rahman (Doctoral Student at Harvard and former Twitter Trust & Safety council member). This gathering falls directly in the wake of our recent collaboration with Thorn (project led by Rebecca Portnoff) around generative AI principles for reducing harms against children that received commitments from some major tech companies and has a corresponding Safety by Design white paper related to suggested mitigations. In addition, we will be following up our May 14th gathering in NYC with a large gathering in London in collaboration w/ The Royal Society and the LEGO Group. The work of All Tech Is Human in creating the world's largest multistakeholder, multidisciplinary network in Responsible Tech is made possible through the support of the The Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, Oak Foundation, Future of Online Trust & Safety Fund (Eli Sugarman), Schmidt Futures, and the Siegel Family Endowment. The Trust & Safety community is strengthened when we come together to share knowledge, best practices, and a unifying goal to build a better tech future. Together, we work to solve tech and society’s thorniest issues. #AllTechIsHuman #ResponsibleTech #TrustandSafety

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Had a great conversation with Jacquelyn Miller and Christina Farr on the ins and outs of the direct communication method for startups. They had lots of great advice, which you can check out at the blog. My big takeaway, personally, is that there's truly no substitute for authentic expertise: Founders eat, breathe, and sleep their startup's market, giving them the kind of nuanced, insightful perspective that nobody else can provide. You don't need to be a professional writer or a seasoned on-camera personality to shine; you just have to give your real thoughts on the topic.

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A recent study highlights the empathy gap in AI technology. Our conversational agents lack empathy, a fundamentally human trait. This calls for a blend of technological prowess and emotional intelligence. Let's develop AI that supports and enhances our human interactions, rather than attempting to replace them. As we innovate, let's commit to a future where technology is developed with a heart. #AI #Empathy #HumanCentricAI #Innovation #TechEthics

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At the gift link you'll find an important piece by Jamelle Bouie for those of us in the nonpartisan pro-democracy sector as we face up to how the US elections will affect our movement toward democracy. I often hear that we should stop talking about "democracy," since it's reported that many right-leaning folks no longer like this word (or see it as "left-coded"), and that we should talk about "constitutional republicanism" instead. But we have to remember that "constitutionalism" is not the same as "democracy." We have to ask ourselves which is our aim. Is "constitutionalism," and the most cramped reading of the formal outlines of our governance at that, really the destination we hoped to reach? What sort of society are we aiming to be? As Bouie reminds us: "We were not given a democratic Constitution; we made one. We unraveled the elitist and hierarchical Constitution of the founders to build something that works for us — that conforms to our expectations." He goes on to say, "But nothing is permanent. What’s made can be unmade. And at the foundation of his campaign is a promise, from Donald Trump, to unmake our democratic Constitution." In his first term, Trump and his political movement, did much to unmake our aspiring democracy. In a second term he vows to complete that unmaking: "Free of the guardrails that kept him in place the first time, affirmed by the Supreme Court and backed by allies and apparatchiks in the conservative movement, Trump will merge the office of the presidency with himself. He will shake it from its moorings in the Constitution and rebuild it as an instrument of his will, wielded for his friends and against his enemies. In doing so, he will erode the democratic assumptions that undergird our current constitutional order. And he will have the total loyalty of a Republican Party that itself is twisting and abusing the counter-majoritarian features of the American system to undermine and unravel democracy in the states it controls." I wish I could say that with this election, we'll find out that the American electorate think about this proposition, whether we should merge the office of the presidency with the interests of one man, whether we should restrict our notion of our freedoms to what a minority of Americans think those freedoms should be, and whether we should abandon our notion of inclusive democracy for a fixation on constitutionalism that is confined to what that minority of Americans think our Constitution should mean. However, the inability of our political discourse, especially our political press, to speak clearly and honestly about these issues has made it hard to say this is the referendum on our attempt at democracy that it so clearly appears to be. Here's hoping that enough of us show up to support our continued movement toward a true democracy! https://lnkd.in/e9sTK_ZU

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🚨 Breaking News: The U.S. Constitution needs a reboot! 🇺🇸🔄 Is it time to reimagine American democracy for the 21st century? In our latest post for #unify , my colleagues and I propose a bold idea: using the principles of participation, deliberation, and citizens' assemblies to hold a National People's Convention to rewrite the Constitution! 🖋️📜 Key points: • 🏛️ Our current system is creaking under modern pressures • 🎩 The Founders went rogue to create the Constitution • 💡 We can do the same to upgrade our democracy! • 🗳️Imagine thousands drafting, millions voting on a new framework It's bold, it's daring, but isn't that what America is all about? 🔗 Dive into the full article here 👉 : https://lnkd.in/ey8dPZ9R Let's start a revolution...of ideas! 💥🧠🗽 #DeliberativeDemocracy #CitizensAssemblies #DemocracyInnovation #WeThePeople #AmericanRenewal

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This week in SitRep: The outcome of the U.S. Presidential election will have profound consequences for the major crises roiling the globe today. Most immediately, here’s what the election could mean for the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East. https://lnkd.in/ePihpdPy

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Cool case study of how Arrived invited their customers and community to invest in their Series A, alongside the VCs. Favorite quote: "About 65% of our Community Round investors were also active Arrived users. Following the Community Round, these investors have invested, on average, 3.9x more on the Arrived platform compared to those who did not participate." That's the vision for Wefunder. If startups invite their customers to become investors and owners, that will result in more active and loyal customers, more passionate brand ambassadors, stronger community, and faster growth. VCs emphasize the "value add" of their capital. This is the value add of a Community Round. https://lnkd.in/gpiz5nxX

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Investigative collective Bellingcat has been pioneering the use of open source evidence like social media posts to bring justice and accountability for human rights abuses, atrocities, and disinformation.    Its investigations have included detailing Russian military intelligence’s role in poisoning opposition figures, discovering who was responsible for a devastating, mysterious oil spill in Trinidad and Tobago, and illuminating the murky funding of far-right disinformation websites in India.     Bellingcat has been developing a process to use open source evidence in international court cases that seek justice for atrocities and other human rights abuses, like those dealing with the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine before the International Criminal Court. “It really helps complement other types of investigative work, witness statements, evidence gathered from the ground, when you have a vast amount of open-source data to support that,” explains Bellingcat’s founder, Eliot Higgins. Physical evidence is no longer so necessary, he says, “because there are multiple other ways to verify whether a video or photograph is taken in the place it claims to be.”    We spoke to Higgins about the collective’s work and how it strengthens human rights and democracy: https://osf.to/3VZa7XQ Listen to more from Eliot Higgins on the latest episode of What's Wrong with Democracy?, a podcast produced by Tortoise Media and supported by us. #OpenSociety #Democracy #OpenSource #IndependentJournalism #Investigations #InternationalJustice #Disinformation 

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Thank you Thomson Reuters for your super piece on International Labour Organization’s first of its kind paper on #ArtificalIntelligence & #LatinAmerica, in partnership with The World Bank ‼️Spoiler Alert‼️: more is needed to ensure that AI affects everyone positively & equally. Full Piece ⬇️ AI could eliminate up to 5% of jobs in Latin America, study finds -

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Identity.vc is bringing capital and community to Europe's LGBTQ+ venture ecosystem | TechCrunch When Til Klein and Jochen Beutgen came across Gaingels, the U.S.-based syndicate of angel investors backing LGBTQ+ founders, they wondered why there wasn’t a firm looking to do the same for the European LGBTQ+ startup community. Five years later, when a firm like that still didn’t exist, Klein and Beutgen decided they should try to launch one themselves. In 2023, the pair launched Identity.vc, a venture firm that invests in early-stage companies with at least one founder or executive who ide... Read more here: https://lnkd.in/dHgaDCCH . . Like 💝 Comment below ⏬ Share ✅ For More Such Updates Follow Us @qnewshub @qnewscrunch . . #qnewshub #qnewscrunch #StartupFunding

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My thoughts in Axios on the AI model export controls the Biden Administration is considering to counter China: "It just feeds into this overall narrative that we're closing off our country to China. We're being the confrontational ones. We're the ones separating ourselves from the world," said Mercatus Center's Matt Mittelsteadt. I support the Tiktok divestiture bill because Tiktok's purpose as a tool of Chinese statecraft and influence is beyond explicit. It had to go. That said, such action must be treated as unique, bespoke and rare. Throwing up one barrier after another with China is a truly worrying trend and will only inflame tensions and further blowback. Unlike the Tiktok bill, controlling the export of advanced AI tech is optional. The proposed rules would only control proprietary systems, allowing the near equally advanced open-source models to continue flowing into China. Chinese citizens meanwhile could still be able to access regulated models via API. 'Control' seems a misnomer. This begs the question: what is the strategy here? The benefit of such AI export controls seems truly marginal, yet the diplomatic message these controls will send will be powerfully negative. While we must toe the line carefully with China, sewing trade restrictions and resulting anger with little to show for it will undermine our ability to walk back tensions and reach a potential trade detente.

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Great article by Minh-Thu Pham with whom I'm working on improving the outcomes from the UN Summit of the Future. Minh-Thu's articles contains lots of ideas about what might be included in the Summit outcome - the so-called Pact of the Future - including my favourite, the new norm of "Nothing about us, without us" which I mentioned in an earlier post.

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