Beatriz Kira’s research while affiliated with University of Sussex and other places

Artificially generated content threatens to seriously disrupt the public sphere. Generative AI massively facilitates the production of convincing portrayals of fabricated events. We have already begun to witness the spread of synthetic misinformation, political propaganda, and non-consensual intimate deepfakes. Malicious uses of the new technologies can only be expected to proliferate over time. In the face of this threat, social media platforms must surely act. But how? While it is tempting to think they need new sui generis policies targeting synthetic content, we argue that the challenge posed by generative AI should be met through the enforcement of general platform rules. We demonstrate that the threat posed to individuals and society by AI-generated content is no different in kind from that of ordinary harmful content—a threat which is already well recognised. Generative AI massively increases the problem but, ultimately, it requires the same approach. Therefore, platforms do best to double down on improving and enforcing their existing rules, regardless of whether the content they are dealing with was produced by humans or machines.

Rulemaking in digital trade is proceeding apace. Many preferential trade agreements contain dedicated e-commerce or digital trade chapters and some states have entered into stand-alone digital economy agreements. This article seeks to establish whether, and to what extent, normative change is occurring in digital trade agreements, the nature of any changes, and identify which states are acting as norm entrepreneurs. We employ a new method of legal coding, systematically comparing the nature and prescriptiveness of digital provisions in 12 trade agreements concluded between 2019 and 2023. We find evidence of substantial policy innovation, and identify Singapore as the key norm entrepreneur. A new wave of ‘Singapore-led’ agreements substantially expands the scope of digital trade, to cover areas such as digital identities, e-invoicing and e-payments, the governance of AI, and regulation of new digital technologies. Commitments are typically couched as soft rather than hard law, reflecting the nascent stages of rulemaking. Norm entrepreneurship on the part of Singapore and its allies reflects a desire to position themselves as ‘digital hubs’ in the global economy, spur rulemaking in areas where innovation is ahead of regulation, and promote digital interconnectivity at time of regulatory divergence and geopolitical rivalry.