On the 9th of March, the Digital Commons Task Force (DCTF) online meeting broadened its usual format to include expert perspectives, focusing on a pressing question: can digital commons offer solutions to the growing misinformation crisis in the age of artificial intelligence?
While DCTF meetings are typically centered on project developments, this session invited guest speakers to examine how the information landscape is rapidly evolving under the influence of AI. Although detailed discussions remain confidential to encourage open exchange, a key theme emerged from the conversation.
Benjamin Talin, founder of the open knowledge platform MoreThanDigital, delivered a stark assessment of today’s media ecosystem. He argued that traditional media models are nearing obsolescence, asserting that future information systems must be built on peer-reviewed expertise and transparent knowledge infrastructures.
Researchers Marta Poblet and Anna Colom from The Data Tank also presented their work on strengthening public-interest media in the AI era. Their research highlights how artificial intelligence is transforming content production and suggests that governance models rooted in the digital commons could help rebuild public trust and accountability.
Overall, the discussion reflected a growing consensus among experts: addressing misinformation will require more than incremental changes to existing media systems. Instead, new, collaborative knowledge frameworks grounded in transparency and shared governance may be essential to ensuring reliable information in an AI-driven world.
What do you think? Are we ready to transition from traditional media models to collectively governed knowledge systems, and what role should each of us play in shaping that future?
About the DCTF:
The NGI Commons Digital Commons task force (DCTF) is an expert body with technical expertise and a strategic outlook created to help analyse the NGI innovations portfolio and the effect of NGI funding on Digital Commons/ Internet Commons (DC/IC) initiatives. It consists of a hand-picked group of prominent researchers, policy and technology experts, possibly with no ties to the NGI-funded projects.
The DCTF plays several key roles in supporting NGI Commons’s development:
- Help identify DC/IC priorities
- Help define the criteria and framework to analyse the NGI portfolio
- Help identify DC/IC initiatives of relevance to the NGI and establish liaisons
- Help select use cases to measure the leverage effect of NGI funding
- Provide advice on a long-term exploitation and sustainability action plan
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