Writing
Recent
How work kills us
An interview with Jeffrey Pfeffer of Stanford University, author of Dying for a Paycheck Companies claim that their human capital is their most valuable asset. But surely that's just hot air considering the awful ways that companies often treat their...
Why collaborative thinking beats individual smarts
An interview with Thomas Malone, author of Superminds People have formed groups and thought together to solve problems for millennia. But new ways to do that with digital technologies mean that this commingling of brains is now far greater than the sum of...
Technology and its discontents
The role of technology is under attack Whether it is the oligopoly of big web platforms, the threat to privacy from data barons or the risks to jobs and humanity from artificial intelligence, the idea of technical progress is under fire. It should not be....
AI & Data
The Economic Implications of AI
CHATAM HOUSE, 2018: Artificial intelligence will shake up the economy in counter-intuitive ways. It may dramatically increase productivity and potentially even create jobs. But poor countries' development model may be clobbered.
Data and the secret scramble for AI’s soul
The key resource of the AI era is labeled training data, and a quiet rivalry is on to get it. Clever firms rely on user interactions — and the “data exhaust” this generates — to improve their services in a continuous feedback loop.
Data, data everywhere
Information has gone from scarce to superabundant. That brings huge new benefits but also big headaches.
A world of connections
New wireless technologies will link not just people but lots of objects too. That will be tremendously useful, but getting there will be tricky
Big Data and the Future of Business
More isn’t just more. More is new. More is better. More is different. As businesses can collect, store and process more data, this changes what they do, how value is created and how organizations are run. -- The basis of commercial enterprise is...
The Rise of Big Data
How It's Changing the Way We Think About the World Everyone has heard of big data but few know what it means. In essence, we can do with a large body of data things we can't do when working with smaller amounts: the change of scale leads to a change of...
Previous
2009 to 2012
2012
“The Impact of the Economic Crisis on Asia.” Lecture to the Cambridge Advanced Management Programme. Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, July 10, 2012.
“Hacks and hackers: A new era of ‘data-driven journalism’ is changing the nature of reporting.” Number 1 Shimbun, February 2012. (Monthly magazine of the Foreign Corespondents Club of Japan).”
2011
“Harnessing the data deluge.” Keynote speech at the 33rd International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners, Mexico, City, Mexico. Nov. 2, 2011.
“Diving into the data deluge.” Keynote speech at the Oxford Digital Data Dialogue (OD3) at the Oxford Internet Institute. Sept. 21, 2011.
“Traitors or Saviors of Japan?: The Role of Japanese Executives at Foreign Firms.” Keynote speech at The Economist Corporate Network “Gaishi” event; Tokyo, June 16, 2011.
“Japan Must Construct the Future, Not Rebuild the Past.” Keynote speech at Rebuilding Japan Conference & Charity Event, The Economist Corporate Network; Tokyo, April 14, 2011.
“The Revolution Will be Data-ized.” Remarks on “Real World Applications” panel, O’Reilly’s Strata conference; Santa Clara, California, February 2, 2011.
“The End of Japanese Innovation?” Luncheon address to the American Chamber of Commerce in Japan, Tokyo. January 20, 2011.
2010
“Japanese Business and Innovation: Reflections on Japan’s ‘De-Globalization’.” The Economist’s Japan Summit, Tokyo, December 16, 2010 (PDF slides)
“Big Data, Big Benefits, Big Trouble.” Opening remarks to Big Data and Global Flows panel, at conference “The Economics of Personal Data and Privacy”; Organization for Economist Cooperation and Development, Paris, December 1, 2010
“The Past and Future of Japanese Innovation.” Keynote speech at the Roundtable on Innovation, OECD/Asia Development Bank Institute. Tokyo, November 24, 2010
“Asian Megatrends for Business.” Remarks at private gathering of The Economist Corporate Network, Tokyo, September 27, 2010 (PDF slides)
“Briefing on Japan: Politics, Economy and Foreign Investment.” Remarks at private gathering of The Economist Corporate Network, Embassy of Belgium in Tokyo, September 9, 2010
2009
“Sayonara, change.” Prospect magazine (UK). Issue 163, October 2009. (PDF here)
“A Foreign Correspondent’s View of Reporting from Japan.” Speech to the Keizai Koho Center, Tokyo. December 8, 2009
“Japanese Business Leadership: New Approaches for New Times” Speech to the 9th Roundtable with the Government of Japan. The Economist Conferences, Tokyo, December 7, 2009 (PDF slides)
“The Future of Asia’s and Japan’s Export Economies After the Crisis.” (PDF of slides) Seminar presentation to the Nippon Keidanren, September 17, 2009
“Cloud Computing Brought Down to Earth.” Introductory remarks for Digital Transformations Panel; World Economic Forum; Dalian, China; September 12, 2009
“Tamed Tigers, Distressed Dragon: How Export-Led Growth Derailed Asia’s Economies.” Foreign Affairs,July/August 2009 (with Brian P. Klein)
“Asia’s Green Tech Revolution: New Model, New Challenges.” Opening remarks to session “Going, Going, Green,” World Economic Forum East Asia Summit 2009, Seoul, June 19, 2009 (PDF here.)
“Understanding US-Asia Economic Interrelations.” Remarks at the Salzburg Global Seminar / Freeman Foundation Symposium:Â Strengthening Cooperation Between the US and East Asia, June 7, 2009 (A PDF is here; the slides are here)
“Meet the Enemy: Understanding Critics of the Patent System.” Speech at the European Patent Forum / PATINNOVA 2009; Prague, April 28, 2009 (PDF here)
2008
“Seizing the Arbitrage Opportunity for Legal Rights: A Case Study of International Bridges to Justice.” Innovations, MIT Press, vol. 3, Issue 2. June 2008 (PDF version)
“The Nation-State and the Ever-Changing Internet.” Introductory remarks to the Interactive Panel of Experts, OECD Ministerial Meeting on the Future of the Internet Economy. Seoul, Korea, 18 June 2008. (PDF)
“Muddling Through Internet Governance”, Invited essay for Publius Project, Berkman Center for Law & Technology, Harvard Law School, May 2008
“ICTs to Reduce Climate Change: The coming age of ubiquitous networking.” Presentation to the Global Information Infrastructure Commission (GIIC), April 25, 2008; Tokyo, Japan
“Green Jobs: Pick One.” Remarks at Research Conference: Green Jobs for Asia and the Pacific. International Labor Organization. Niigata, Japan. April 21, 2008
The Virtual World’s Footprints in the Real World.” Remarks at ICTs and Climate Change Symposium; The International Telecommunication Union and the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications. Kyoto, Japan; April 15, 2008
“The Future of Convergence & Regulation: Trends — and Errors! — from the US and EU.” Keynote speech at the Keidanren Convergence Regulatory Symposium, February 26, 2008 in Tokyo, Japan
2007
“Governance as Gardening: The Governance of Information in the Global Economy” (PDF). Report of the 7th Annual Rueschlikon Conference on Information Policy, October 2007
“Intellectual Property in an Era of Social Production.” Lecture at the Salzburg Seminar #439, Salzburg, Austria, March 15, 2007
“Innovation: Where it comes from, whence it goes?” Speech to the Entrepreneurs’ Organization Malaysia; January 17, 2007 in Kuala Lumpur. (Article about it from The Daily Edge)
“The Telecoms Industry Never Forgets, But Never Learns.” Introductory Remarks, World Communications Awards, London, November 9, 2006.
“The Internet, Regulation, the Private Sector and Public Safety.” Concluding remarks at the CEPT Conference, Berlin, Oct. 12, 2006. Published in The International Journal of Communication, No. 2 (2007). (PDF version: IJOC)
2006
“Threat to the net: ‘Network neutrality’ is good, but enshrining it in law is not.” Prospect (UK), September 2006
“Power to the people” Review of Yochai Benkler’s “The Wealth of Networks” in The New Statesman,September 4, 2006
“Threat to the net: ‘Network neutrality’ is good, but enshrining it in law is not.” Prospect magazine (UK), September 2006
“Openness, Closedness and Internet Governance.” Remarks at the Internet Governance for Development conference, Oxford Internet Institute, August 31, 2006 (PDF version)
“The Internet (TM): A Solution for Openness Through Closedness.” Paper presented at the Oxford Internet Institute conference on Internet governance, Aug. 31-Sept. 1, 2006, University of Oxford (PDF version)
“The Four Myths of Modern Telecommunications,” Dinner remarks at the House of Lords in London, July 12th 2006. (PDF version)
“The Business and Politics of Critical Information Infrastructure Protection” (PDF format) from the Roundtable of the Rueschlikon Conference on Information Policy; Washington, DC, March 2006.
“Navigating the future(s) of biotech intellectual property,” Nature Biotechnology (Vol 24, No 3), March 2006
2005
“Who Will Control the Internet?,” Foreign Affairs, November/December 2005
“Icann. Can you?” The International Herald Tribune, Nov. 16, 2005
“Harness the power of mobile phones.” The International Herald Tribune, Aug. 4, 2005
“Ensuring (and Insuring?) Critical Information Infrastructure Protection.” Harvard KSG Working Paper, based on Rueschlikon Conference on Information Law. October 2005
“The WSIS Wars: An Analysis of the Politicization of the Internet.” In “The World Summit on the Information Society: Moving from the Past into the Future,” edited by Daniel Stauffacher & Wolfgang Kleinwächter. United Nations ICT Task Force. New York. Sept. 2005
“And the Answer to Internet Governance is…” Remarks at the Oxford Internet Institute; Oxford, UK; 5 May 2005 (PDF version.)
“Slouching Towards Geneva: Ten Unappreciated Axioms of Internet Governance”. Background paper for the Oxford Internet Institute’s forum on Internet Governance; Oxford, UK, 5-6 May 2005. (PDF version.)
“The Privacy Risks of New Passport Technologies”. Introductory panel remarks at Computers, Freedom & Privacy conference; Seattle, April 13, 2005
“Digital Convergence — or Digital Divorce?!” Remarks at McKinsey & Co. Media Practice Dinner at the Groucho Club in London on April 7, 2005
“Global Business, Parochial Technology”. Introductory Remarks at The Economist’s Technology Industry Summit at CeBIT, March 9, 2005 in Hannover, Germany
“Source vs. Force: Open Source Software Meets Intergovernmental Politics,” in The Politics of Open Source Adoption, (Joe Karaganis and Robert Latham, eds.); Social Science Research Council. May 2005. (Preprint PDF here / January 2005 draft)
“Overcoming the New Paradoxes of Spam”. Remarks to the 4th ASEM eCommerce Conference; 22 February 2005
2004
“The World vs. The Web: The UN’s Politicization of the Information Society,” in Information Technology and International Development, MIT Press. July 2004 (with Audrey Selian). (PDF here)
“Mapping Internet Governance: Thoughts on applying cartography to technology and public policy.” Lecture at University College London, November 15, 2004 (to be posted shortly).
“Multilateral Control of Internet Infrastructure and its Impact on US Sovereignty,” Telecommunications Policy and Research Conference; Alexandria, VA. October 2004
“Internet Governance, National Interest and International Relations,” in Internet Governance: A Grand Collaboration, United Nations Information and Communications Technology Task Force, New York. Sept. 2004
“Openness, Trust and Sovereignty,” Rueschlikon Conference on Information Policy. Harvard University, Zurich, Switzerland, June 2004
“Media Regulations Meet the Internet Age,” Television Quarterly. National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. New York. Spring 2004 (with Matthew Hindman)
“Internet Governance: What? How? Who?” Workshop on Internet Governance, International Telecommunications Union. Geneva. Feb. 2004
2003
“Why the Internet Must Regulate Itself,” The Financial Times, Oct. 31, 2003
“More Media, Less Diversity,” The New York Times, June 2, 2003. (with Matthew Hindman)
“Information Technology and Public-Private Sector Partnerships.” Remarks (in French) at the regulatory side-panel of the UN World Summit on the Information Society, Geneva, Dec. 2003. (English translation here / http://www.cukier.com/writings/WSIS-Dec03e.html)
“Measuring Media Concentration Online and Offline,” Media Diversity and Localism: Meaning, Metrics, and the Public Interest, Ford Foundation. New York, Dec. 2003 (with Matthew Hindman)
“Open Source Biotech: Can a non-proprietary approach to intellectual property work in the life sciences?” The Acumen Journal of Life Sciences, vol. I, issue 3. September/October 2003
“Starving to Death on Red Herring.” The Baffler. Chicago, IL, Autumn 2003
“Eminent Domain: Initial Policy Perspectives on Nationalizing Country-Code Internet Addresses.” Cardozo School of Law, Yeshiva University, New York, March 2003.
2002
“Net Control,” Prospect (UK), October 2002
“The Web’s Internal Woes,” The Financial Times, June 23 2002
“All That Glitters Isn’t Gold,” The Wall Street Journal Europe, Feb. 19, 2002
2001
“Cyberspace vs. Sovereignty: New Foreign Policy Challenges for the Internet Era.” June 2001
“Dot-Com Carthage: The Old World Meets the New Economy, Round II.” Speech delivered to the Harvard Business School’s Eurotrek symposium, London, 7 January 2001
2000
“Cyberspace Meets Sovereignty,” The Wall Street Journal Europe, Aug. 17, 2000
“Spies Like Us,” The Wall Street Journal Europe, March 30, 2000
“From Journalism to Journal: How New Technologies Encourage the ‘Me’ in ‘Media’,” IMP Magazine on Information Impacts; Center for Information Strategy and Policy, of Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC). May 2000
“Dot-Com Delirium: The Old World Meets the New Economy,” Speech delivered to L’Association France-Ameriques, Paris, 17 April 2000
“Legitimacy and Internet Governance,” (co-author with Tamar Frankel, Professor of Law at the Boston University School of Law). Published in conference proceedings of Fordham Law School (NY) and Southern Cross University Law School (Australia), Spring 2000
“The Imperial Internet: Middle Eastern Internet Traffic and International Relations,” For CAINET’00 sponsored by the Egypt chapter of the Internet Society, Cairo, March 2000
“Internet Governance: Then and Now.” TeleGeography. Washington, DC. January 2000
Pre 2000
“Internet Governance and the Ancien Regime (A Reply to Larry Lessig),” Swiss Review of Political Science, Zurich. Spring 1999
“‘Frenchelon’: France’s Global Surveillance Network and its Implications on International Intelligence Cooperation,” Presented at Computers, Freedom & Privacy (CFP’99) sponsored by the Association of Computing Machinery, Washington, DC, April 1999
“Internet Governance and International Relations,” Speech to The Center for the Study of International Communications and The American University of Paris, February 17, 1999.
“The Internet Loses Its Head,” The Wall Street Journal, Oct. 22, 1998
“The Global Internet.” TeleGeography. Washington, DC. November 1998.
Implications of Internet Governance on the Competitive Internet Landscape.” Re-Engineering the Management & Governance of the Internet. IIR Conferences. London, January 26, 1998
“Peering and Fearing: ISP Interconnection and Regulatory Issues.” The Internet and Telecommunications Policy. Harvard University, Kennedy School of Government, Information Infrastructure Project, December 1997