Session
Description:
Knowledge lies at the heart of AI. It is both the source from which AI systems learn and a key output of AI processing. Knowledge is also a fundamental asset of individuals, communities, institutions, and countries, shaping development, innovation, cultural identity, and the exercise of human rights. Yet, knowledge is less visible in current governance debates than data, infrastructure, algorithms, and computing power. This represents a shift from the original WSIS vision. In 2005, the Tunis Commitment and Agenda mentioned knowledge 29 times and data only 10 times. As AI reshapes societies and economies, it is time to return knowledge to the centre of digital governance. This session will examine knowledge as a critical AI asset from technical, legal, security, economic, human rights, standardisation, and development perspectives. It will explore how open-source platforms, open data, standards, taxonomies, and knowledge infrastructures can support the creation, exchange, and responsible use of knowledge. The discussion will address intellectual property, licensing, attribution, and the balance between protecting and sharing knowledge. Creative Commons will be considered as possible framework for enabling access while safeguarding the rights of knowledge creators in the age of generative AI. The session will also explore knowledge as a strategic and security asset, including risks related to manipulation, loss, concentration, and external dependency. Particular attention will be given to bottom-up AI: systems developed around local languages, cultures, institutions, and community needs. Such approaches are increasingly technically feasible, economically affordable, and ethically desirable. Finally, the session will examine both explicit knowledge, preserved in books, documents, and databases, and tacit knowledge, embedded in oral traditions, professional experience, and social interaction. Through an open, interactive format, the session will revolve around this central question: who creates, preserves, organises, validates, controls, shares, and benefits from knowledge in the age of AI?
As AI systems increasingly depend on knowledge as core input and output, how can governance frameworks give knowledge a more central place, and what would returning to the WSIS emphasis on knowledge mean in practice? How can intellectual property, licensing, and attribution frameworks balance the protection of knowledge creators' rights with open access to knowledge in the age of generative AI? What conditions, mechanisms, and enabling environments would allow communities, local institutions, and smaller actors (particularly in developing and least developed countries) to develop bottom-up AI grounded in their own languages, cultures, and knowledge, while safeguarding that knowledge from exploitation?
This session aims to reconnect AI and digital governance debates with the WSIS vision of knowledge societies, generating insights on how knowledge is created, protected, shared, and governed in the age of AI. Expected outcomes include: A shared understanding of knowledge as a governance concern distinct from data, infrastructure, and compute. A mapping of tools and frameworks (such as open data, standards, taxonomies, and licensing models such as Creative Commons) for balancing the protection and sharing of knowledge. Potential guiding principles and examples for bottom-up AI grounded in local languages, cultures, institutions, etc. especially in developing countries. Suggestions for policy actions giving knowledge a more central place in governance. Participants will gain a clearer vocabulary for distinguishing data, information, and knowledge, exposure to diverse disciplinary and regional perspectives, and familiarity with the concept of bottom-up AI and its application in practice.
Roundtable
Duration (minutes): 60
Format description: We propose an open-ended conversation that would maximise the degree of audience engagement, bringing the moderator, the speakers, and all session participants on the same level and encouraging anyone to speak up. The length of the session is medium, allowing just enough time for participants to warm up and not too long for the conversation to lose its focus.
Hybrid Format: We invite IGF participants to join us for a somewhat different type of session - an open-ended conversation dependent on audience inputs. All participants will have a chance to speak, onsite and online, guided by the moderators. There will be no panellists with lecture-like presentations, and the proposed speakers will focus on “provoking” the conversation. The session will rely on experienced moderators who will – throughout the entire session – pay equal attention to onsite and online participants, ensuring that interventions from both audiences are treated equally. Online participants will be constantly encouraged to contribute their views, both by voice and by text chat. An additional experienced online moderator will engage with participants in the chat and ensure that the discussions happening there are integrated into the overall session. Moreover, we may use live discussion tools (e.g., Slido, Mentimeter, and Pigeonhole) to facilitate real-time exchanges between onsite and online participants.
Organizer 1: Sorina Teleanu, DiploFoundation🔒
Organizer 2: Jovan Kurbalija, 🔒
Speaker 1: KATHERINE GETAO, Civil Society, African Group
Speaker 2: Henri VERDIER, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
Speaker 3: Julia Williams, Intergovernmental Organization, Intergovernmental Organization
Speaker 4: Jovan Kurbalija, Civil Society, Western European and Others Group (WEOG)
What will participants gain from attending this session?
