Session: Investing in Digital Commons

https://conference.publicspaces.net/en/session/investing-in-digital-commons

Naam/name Notulist: Maika Eggink
Datum/date: 27-06-2023 16:00

Sprekersnamen/speaker names:

• Henri Verdier - https://conference.publicspaces.net/en/people/henri-verdier: Ambassador Digital Affiairs
• Marietje Schaake - https://conference.publicspaces.net/en/people/marietje-schaake: International policy director + Simona De Heer 
• Ron Roozendaal - https://conference.publicspaces.net/en/people/ron-roozendaal: Director General Digitalisation of the Netherlands
• Fiona Krakenbürger - https://conference.publicspaces.net/en/people/fiona-krakenbuerger: Sovereign Tech Fund 
• Host: Paul Keller - https://conference.publicspaces.net/en/people/paul-keller

Shownotes 

(mentioned links, books, podcasts, literature, etc.)

• Would one want to replace American monolopies with a Europe monolopy?
• Open source and commons, bluetooth, DNS and the web are born in Europe.
• -

Live notes (500-750 words)

Investing in digital commons. We are talking about the role of governments. 
Henri: Collective effort, to structure and promote digital commons at an international scale. Ecosystem aproach.
Ron: Ensuring that we have responsiblity, we have to regulate and the EU is doing that. AI Act. But also enabling communities to come up with alternatives. Open source is not free, people also need to earn money. 
Fiona: We all reley on tech, we all need it. Look at the needs in the field. We strongly welcome new initiatives, we offer blue prints that we're happy to share. 
Simona: Importance of the EU. First: leave it to the market, Now: few tech giants are in charge. What are we going to do? In the common interst of society, Europe should take the lead.  
Marietje: Who can protect democracy best at this moment, also regarding what's happening in China.
Fiona: Strong bias for innovation, but what about the resources that we need for the infrastructure?

Questions from the public: 
Is there a fund? What kind of money is available? Compares Europe with US, were there is big funding available.
Paul: we don't want people with a huge amount of money doing damage to society.

Generative AI 
Ron: Have our own open source alternatives.
Henri: Monolopies are unacceptable. Also important to pay attention to open source correct translation. 

Commons as a solution for different social problems?
Simone: Strategic autonomie argument, the right side says: we need our own tech giants, but the other side says: we don't need that giants at all. We need to do some serious redesigning. 

What are you governing? Are you trying to regulate trust? 
Simone: Maybe we can work on communicating them more simply. 
Ron: Trust that we will leave no one behind, it's trust in more things.

Cybersecurity: how are we protecting ourselves?
Marietje: there is coordination, and there are laws. But it's complex. Mismatch between a single market and 27 countries. 
Henri: We have to promote good practices. 

Paul: there is an oppertunity to invest in digital infrastructure, this is hard wrok, maintainance is important.