Publications: Daniel Castro

The Center for Data Innovation submitted comments to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regarding the disclosure and transparency of AI-generated content in political advertisements.

Global trade relies heavily on trust, and the Internet amplifies trust challenges due to distance, anonymity, and the vast scale of interactions. To address these challenges, APEC economies should focus on developing socio-technical solutions, like digital IDs and content provenance tools, to improve trust in the digital environment and ensure the safety and security of the digital economy.

The draft DTI Law presents a promising framework for advancing Vietnam's digital technology sector. While it offers valuable steps forward in areas such as data accessibility, AI regulation, and industry support, there are several aspects that could benefit from refinement.

As AI continues to advance, the technology has created many opportunities and risks. Despite significant geopolitical differences, a series of interviews with AI experts in China and the United Kingdom reveals common AI safety priorities, shared understanding of the benefits and risks of open source AI, and agreement on the merits of closer collaboration—but also obstacles to closer partnerships.

The AI Act requires providers of AI systems to mark their output as AI-generated content. This labelling requirement is meant to allow users to detect when they are interacting with content generated by AI systems to address concerns like deepfakes and misinformation. Unfortunately, implementing one of the AI Act’s suggested methods for meeting this requirement — watermarking — may not be feasible or effective for some types of media.

Over the last several years, public opinion on technology and the use of data has shifted from excitement to skepticism to fear.

The U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy published a New York Times op-ed arguing that social media poses such a threat to children’s mental health that these platforms should come with a warning label like cigarettes and alcohol. However, his argument is flawed on multiple levels: There is no scientific consensus that social media is causing mental health issues among youth; social media use among youth does not present a similar level of risk as tobacco and alcohol use; and the alleged risks of social media come from interaction with specific types of content, not from the platforms themselves.

The next administration needs to place innovation, productivity, and competitiveness at the core of its economic policy. To that end, this report offers a comprehensive techno-economic agenda with 82 actionable policy recommendations.

President Biden’s 2023 executive order on artificial intelligence (AI) directed the State Department to work with other agencies and stakeholders to develop guidance for identifying and managing human rights risks associated with AI. As the State Department prepares this guidance, it should emphasize that in many cases, the risk of inaction—the missed opportunities to use AI to improve human rights—presents the most significant threat, and it should prioritize deploying AI to support and enhance human rights.

Daniel Castro appeared on the AI50 podcast with Hanh Brown to discuss data governance, privacy policies, and the transformative power of data-driven innovation.