Investing in an ethical AI and digital ecosystem has become synonymous with investing in the future. While the focus is on advancing society, how individual well-being fits within this society is unclear. There seems to be an assumption that people should adapt to a digital world rather than a digital world adapting for people, and that individuals need to learn the ins and outs of new technologies on their own. This approach risks excluding people from a digital life and promoting an AI evolution fueled by techno-centric biases that reward white privilege and exacerbate the digital divide. If we do not clarify where and how people fit in, we risk letting inequitable behaviors and ideals become ingrained in ethical AI and digital ecosystems.
There is an opportunity to reframe our relationship with technology, from one of passive observers to active participants. We call this “digital intelligence,” and it can help us embrace amore human-centric digital evolution across technological innovation, policy, governance, ethics, and more that can ensure AI and digital ecosystems further equity rather than entrench inequity.Strong digital intelligence brings people into the digital world with the right skills needed to safely navigate the space. It supports the mindful use of technology by all - individuals, communities, governments, private sector, nonprofits - and a more comprehensive understanding of what is needed to competently consume digital information.
Digital Intelligence (DQ) is defined as, “a comprehensive set of technical, cognitive, meta-cognitive, and socio-emotional competencies that are grounded in universal moral values and that enable individuals to face the challenges and harness the opportunities of digital life.” It is similar to emotional intelligence in that it represents critical skills needed to thrive and dictates how a person navigates and responds to people and resources, in this case in a digital setting. Essentially, a strong DQ bridges the physical and digital world and helps reduce assumptions about interacting with and being included in the digital world.
With DQ, individuals are equipped with the essential skills needed to plan for, perceive, interpret, and interact with the digital world, which are all important tools in becoming comfortable moving through a new environment. A focus on DQ removes the assumption that people have no baseline knowledge of how to use digital technology and replaces it with the idea that they need skills to know how to better their lives by interacting with this space. With a strong DQ, people are able to advocate for and build meaningful connectivity on their own terms and address the technological and opportunity sides of the digital divide.
DQ removes the ambiguity that can surround terms such as literacy and access and provides a framework for what it means to effectively use technology. It also expands the definition of digital to encompass the way we operate in and out of a digital world by emphasizing how a person responds to the digital world in their life, not just while “logged on.” It requires people to learn skills like digital empathy, digital critical thinking, and digital boundaries. Concepts like digital literacy, digital acceptance, and digital accessibility are all components of good DQ but when viewed as their own entities, the way a person interacts with a digital space as their whole self is overlooked. DQ is also a critical part of digital inclusion, only digital inclusion focuses on how a technological system is built while DQ highlights the way opportunities are recognized within that system.
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Empowered people fuel empowered societies, which is why it is not enough to increase awareness or have common terminology on AI and other emerging digital technologies. There needs to be common understanding, and that is where DQ can help. It highlights the skills people need to operate effectively and comfortably in a digital world and, when distributed equally throughout societies, can dismantle concentrations of “tech power.” This comfort decreases the gap between the haves and the have-nots, creating space for empowered individuals to use tech in service of themselves and recognize/address oppressive practices related to AI and emerging digital technologies. Together, these skills lower the risk of misinformation, deep fakes, privacy hacks and more by making digital threats more noticeable, giving rise to collective digital policing and accountability.
For example, deepfakes are on the rise and while there are mass information campaigns telling people that they exist, there are not widespread educational campaigns on how to spot a deepfake. People are not being taught the skills necessary or being automatically provided with technology updates - like video verification - to think critically about or react to these videos.Videos have power because seeing is believing, and are therefore an impactful tool for marginalized communities who already have a difficult time being believed (think of the influence phone recorded videos had in garnering accountability for George Floyd’s murder or showing the realities of war in Ukraine and Gaza). If deepfakes undermine the power of storytelling through videos or lead to questions around video quality taken by lower-end phones, which tend to be owned by marginalized racial and socioeconomic groups, the path to justice and equity becomes even harder.
The possible benefits of AI and emerging digital technologies continue to unfold as the technology develops, but the breadth of the benefit is reliant on the DQ of society. As long as people have concerns about their role, relevance, safety and privacy in a digital world powered by AI and more, they will be hesitant to engage with a digital world. When appropriately developed, DQ can disrupt cognitive distortions around AI and other emerging digital technology. This enables a person to move away from either/or thinking and bias, toward a mindset where they can equally manage the positives and negatives because they have the capacity to confidently connect to a new reality. With DQ, humanness is brought into the digital world and a person can learn alongside it. Inclusion, authenticity, psychological safety and well-being are prioritized above efficiency, progress and integration as people are put at the center of digital advancements.
As digital-centric contracts and coalitions form across sectors, it is time to shape and advocate for a universally understood DQ to create inclusive and empowered pathways for all people through an evolving AI and digital ecosystem. These efforts can shepherd in a more human-centric, inclusive and safe digital evolution that amplifies and advances who we are as human beings. Most importantly, this is how we can protect our humanness while reaping the benefits of the digital frontier. A digital future is inevitable, and now is when we can have the biggest influence on shaping it. We must embrace DQ to ensure that people have the tools to confidently tackle current and future societal challenges.
