Relevance to Internet Governance: The Internet connects most digital relationships today. Just as the old colonial systems would gain ground wherever they went, digital colonization involves the Internet observing all the activities of all its users, as well as monopolizing access to content and information to the public. The knowledge gained about Internet users is then used to influence their decisions. This can influence a user to buy a specific product or choose the part that should come to power in a country. This is proof of how Internet governance can take the form of modern colonization. If it can influence the seat of the presidency in the territory of a political superpower, world colonization of data can also definitely create or damage other geopolitical scenarios. The reason for the Internet being the major cause of disparity between the nations of the world is the governing body of the Web. This situation is aggravated by the AI race, as the AI sector is different from previous major Internet areas because it is seen as strategic technology by many governments. For example, most data captured in the US and China, and to an extent, Russia, stay in their respective countries because of market dominance, policy, or both. Also, Google captures 86% of global Internet searches, Facebook has more than 2 billion active users per month, and Amazon is the largest provider of cloud services with over 1 million users. Therefore, examining if AI supremacy can give rise to a new era of data colonialism is crucial to manage and mitigate eventual dominations by few nations and companies.
Relevance to Theme: Artificial Intelligence is the engine who has been moving the current Surveillance Capitalist society, which collects and processes millions of personal data every day. It's of utmost importance to reflect on how this is affecting society as a whole, at a global level, and the most logical thematic track in which this topic should be discussed is Data.
