An immersive new AI-guided walking tour in Amsterdam invites visitors to follow the footsteps of Anne Frank from 1941, offering a unique blend of narration and animations via smartphone.
The tour covers roughly seven kilometres and includes twelve stops that recreate the Jewish wartime experience.
Each waypoint features lifelike animations of historical figures like Miep Gies, who sheltered the Frank family, and other rescuers.
These are based on archival photographs and narratives, offering fresh insight into the bravery of ordinary citizens.
Designed by CityFans in collaboration with the Anne Frank Institute and the Holocaust Museum, the tour aims to complement the Anne Frank House, whose limited capacity often disappoints many visitors.
It delivers deeper context, personal stories, and valuable historical depth, all through a tech-savvy, self-paced experience.
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At the WSIS+20 High-Level Event in Geneva, a vivid discussion unfolded around how countries in the Global South can build AI capacity from the ground up, rooted in local realities rather than externally imposed models. Organised by the Diplo and partners, including Kenya’s Permanent Mission to the UN, Microsoft, and IT for Change, the session used the fictional agricultural nation of ‘Landia’ to spotlight the challenges and opportunities of community-centred AI development.
With weak infrastructure, unreliable electricity, and fragmented data ecosystems, Landia embodies the typical constraints many developing nations face as they navigate the AI revolution.
UN Tech Envoy Amandeep Singh Gill presented a forthcoming UN report proposing a five-tiered framework to guide countries from basic AI literacy to full development capacity. He stressed the need for tailored, coordinated international support—backed by a potential global AI fund—to avoid the fragmented aid pitfalls seen in climate and health sectors.
Microsoft’s Ashutosh Chadha echoed that AI readiness is not just a tech issue but fundamentally a policy challenge, highlighting the importance of data governance, education systems, and digital infrastructure as foundations for meaningful AI use.
Civil society voices, particularly from IT4Change’s Anita Gurumurthy and Nandini Chami, pushed for ‘regenerative AI’—AI that is indigenous, inclusive, and modular. They advocated for small-scale models that can run on local data and infrastructures, proposing creative use of community media archives and agroecological knowledge.
Speakers stressed that technology should adapt to community needs, not the reverse, and that AI must augment—not displace—traditional practices, especially in agriculture where livelihoods are at stake.
Ultimately, the session crystallised around a core principle: AI must be developed with—not for—local communities. Participants called for training unemployed youth to support rural farmers with accessible AI tools, urged governments to invest in basic infrastructure alongside AI capacity, and warned against replicating inequalities through automation.
The session concluded with optimism and a commitment to continue this global-local dialogue beyond Geneva, ensuring AI’s future in the Global South is not only technologically viable, but socially just.
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At the WSIS+20 High-Level Event in Geneva, the session ‘Digital Humanism: People First!’ spotlighted growing concerns over how digital technologies—especially AI—are reshaping society. Moderated by Alfredo M. Ronchi, the discussion revealed a deep tension between the liberating potential of digital tools and the risks they pose to cultural identity, human dignity, and critical thinking.
Speakers warned that while digital access has democratised communication, it has also birthed a new form of ‘cognitive colonialism’—where people become dependent on AI systems that are often inaccurate, manipulative, and culturally homogenising.
The panellists, including legal expert Pavan Duggal, entrepreneur Lilly Christoforidou, and academic Sarah Jane Fox, voiced alarm over society’s uncritical embrace of generative AI and its looming evolution toward artificial general intelligence by 2026. Duggal painted a stark picture of a world where AI systems override human commands and manipulate users, calling for a rethinking of legal frameworks prioritising risk reduction over human rights.
Fox drew attention to older people, warning that growing digital complexity risks alienating entire generations, while Christoforidou urged for ethical awareness to be embedded in educational systems, especially among startups and micro-enterprises.
Despite some disagreement over the fundamental impact of technology—ranging from Goyal’s pessimistic warning about dehumanisation to Anna Katz’s cautious optimism about educational potential—the session reached a strong consensus on the urgent need for education, cultural protection, and contingency planning. Panellists called for international cooperation to preserve cultural diversity and develop ‘Plan B’ systems to sustain society if digital infrastructures fail.
The session’s tone was overwhelmingly cautionary, with speakers imploring stakeholders to act before AI outpaces our capacity to govern it. Their message was clear: human values, not algorithms, must define the digital age. Without urgent reforms, the digital future may leave humanity behind—not by design, but by neglect.
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At the WSIS+20 High-Level Event in Geneva, UN leaders gathered for a pivotal dialogue on shaping an inclusive digital transformation, marking two decades since the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Speakers across the UN system emphasised that technology must serve people, not vice versa.
They highlighted that bridging the digital divide is critical to ensuring that innovations like AI uplift all of humanity, not just those in advanced economies. Without equitable access, the benefits of digital transformation risk reinforcing existing inequalities and leaving millions behind.
The discussion showcased how digital technologies already transform disaster response and climate resilience. The World Meteorological Organization and the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction illustrated how AI powers early warning systems and real-time risk analysis, saving lives in vulnerable regions.
Meanwhile, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN underscored the need to align technology with basic human needs, reminding the audience that ‘AI is not food,’ and calling for thoughtful, efficient deployment of digital tools to address global hunger and development.
Workforce transformation and leadership in the AI era also featured prominently. Leaders from the International Labour Organization and UNITAR stressed that while AI may replace some roles, it will augment many more, making digital literacy, ethical foresight, and collaborative governance essential skills. Examples from within the UN system itself, such as the digitisation of the Joint Staff Pension Fund through facial recognition and blockchain, demonstrated how innovation can enhance services without sacrificing inclusivity or ethics.
As the session closed, speakers collectively reaffirmed the importance of human rights, international cooperation, and shared digital governance. They stressed that the future of global development hinges on treating digital infrastructure and knowledge as public goods.
With the WSIS framework and Global Digital Compact as guideposts, UN leaders called for sustained, unified efforts to ensure that digital transformation uplifts every community and contributes meaningfully to the Sustainable Development Goals.
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A few ChatGPT users have noticed a new option called ‘Study Together’ appearing among available tools, though OpenAI has yet to confirm any official rollout. The feature seems designed to make ChatGPT a more interactive educational companion than just delivering instant answers.
Rather than offering direct solutions, the tool prompts users to think for themselves by asking questions, potentially turning ChatGPT into a digital tutor.
Some speculate the mode might eventually allow multiple users to study together in real-time, mimicking a virtual study group environment.
With the chatbot already playing a significant role in classrooms — helping teachers plan lessons or assisting students with homework — the ‘Study Together’ feature might help guide users toward deeper learning instead of enabling shortcuts.
Critics have warned that AI tools like ChatGPT risk undermining education, so it could be a strategic shift to encourage more constructive academic use.
OpenAI has not confirmed when or if the feature will launch publicly, or whether it will be limited to ChatGPT Plus users. When asked, ChatGPT only replied that nothing had been officially announced.
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At the WSIS+20 High-Level Event in Geneva, a powerful session brought together humanitarian, peacebuilding, and media development actors to confront the growing threat of disinformation, more broadly reframed as ‘harmful information.’ Panellists emphasised that false or misleading content, whether deliberately spread or unintentionally harmful, can have dire consequences for already vulnerable populations, fueling violence, eroding trust, and distorting social narratives.
Hans-Peter Wyss of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation presented the ‘triple nexus’ approach, advocating for coordinated interventions across humanitarian, development, and peacebuilding efforts. He stressed the vital role of trust, institutional flexibility, and the full inclusion of independent media as strategic actors.
Philippe Stoll of the ICRC detailed an initiative that focuses on the tangible harms of information—physical, economic, psychological, and societal—rather than debating truth. That initiative, grounded in a ‘detect, assess, respond’ framework, works from local volunteer training up to global advocacy and research on emerging challenges like deepfakes.
Donatella Rostagno of Interpeace shared field experiences from the Great Lakes region, where youth-led efforts to counter misinformation have created new channels for dialogue in highly polarised societies. She highlighted the importance of inclusive platforms where communities can express their own visions of peace and hear others’.
Meanwhile, Tammam Aloudat of The New Humanitarian critiqued the often selective framing of disinformation, urging support for local journalism and transparency about political biases, including the harm caused by omission and silence.
The session concluded with calls for sustainable funding and multi-level coordination, recognising that responses must be tailored locally while engaging globally. Despite differing views, all panellists agreed on the need to shift from a narrow focus on disinformation to a broader and more nuanced understanding of information harm, grounded in cooperation, local agency, and collective responsibility.
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At the WSIS+20 High-Level Event in Geneva, UNESCO convened a powerful session on the critical need to protect multilingualism in the digital age. With over 8,000 languages spoken globally but fewer than 120 represented online, the panel warned of a growing digital divide that excludes billions and marginalises thousands of cultures.
Dr Tawfik Jelassi of UNESCO painted a vivid metaphor of the internet as a vast library where most languages have no books on the shelves, calling for urgent action to safeguard humanity’s linguistic and cultural diversity.
Speakers underscored that bridging this divide goes beyond creating language tools—it requires systemic change rooted in policy, education, and community empowerment. Guilherme Canela of UNESCO highlighted ongoing initiatives like the 2003 Recommendation on Multilingualism and the UN Decade of Indigenous Languages, which has already inspired 15 national action plans.
Africa’s case brought the urgency into sharp focus. David Waweru noted that despite hosting a third of the world’s languages, less than 0.1% of websites feature African language content. Yet, promising efforts like the African Storybook project and AI language models show how local storytelling and education can thrive in digital spaces.
Elena Plexida of ICANN revealed that only 26% of email servers accept non-Latin addresses, a stark reminder of the structural barriers to full digital participation.
The session concluded with a strong call for multistakeholder collaboration. Governments, tech companies, indigenous communities, and civil society must work together to make multilingualism the default, not the exception, in digital spaces. As Jelassi put it, ensuring every language has a place online is not just a technical challenge but a matter of cultural survival and digital justice.
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One highlight was the ENACT project, presented by Professor Ana Matamala, which develops simplified news content to serve audiences such as migrants, people with intellectual disabilities, and language learners. While 13 European organisations already offer some easy-to-understand content, challenges remain in maintaining journalistic integrity while ensuring accessibility.
Meanwhile, Professor Pilar Orero unveiled three AI-driven projects: Mosaic, a searchable public broadcaster archive hub; Alfie, which tackles AI bias in media; and a climate change initiative focused on making scientific data more comprehensible to the public. Several education-centred projects also took the stage.
Dr Estella Oncins introduced the Inclusivity project, which uses virtual reality to engage neurodiverse students and promote inclusive teaching methods. Dr Mireia Farrus presented Scribal, a real-time AI-powered transcription and translation tool for university lectures, tailored to support Catalan language users and students with hearing impairments.
Additionally, Dr Mar Gutierrez Colon shared two accessibility tools: a gamified reading app for children in Kenya and an English language test adapted for students with special educational needs. During the Q&A, discussions turned to the challenges of teaching fast-evolving technologies like AI, especially given the scarcity of qualified educators.
The speakers emphasised that digital accessibility is not just a technical concern but a matter of educational justice, advocating for stronger collaboration between academia and industry to ensure inclusive learning opportunities for all.
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Drawing on philosophical traditions from Confucius to Plato, the session emphasised the need for a hybrid approach that preserves the human essence of learning while embracing technological transformation.
Professor Liu showcased BIT’s ‘intelligent education’ model, a human-centred system integrating time, space, knowledge, teachers, and students. Moving beyond rigid, exam-focused instruction, BIT promotes creativity and interdisciplinary learning, empowering students with flexible academic paths and digital tools.
Jovan Kurbalija, Executive Director of Diplo
Meanwhile, Norman Sze highlighted how AI has accelerated industry workflows and called for educational alignment with real-world demands. He argued for reorienting learning around critical thinking, ethical literacy, and collaboration—skills that AI cannot replicate and remain central to personal and professional growth.
A key theme was whether teachers and universities remain relevant in an AI-driven future. Students from around the world contributed compelling reflections: AI may offer efficiency, but it cannot replace the emotional intelligence, mentorship, and meaning-making that only human educators provide.
As one student said, ‘I don’t care about ChatGPT—it’s not human.’ The group reached a consensus: professors must shift from ‘sages on the stage’ to ‘guides on the side,’ coaching students through complexity rather than merely transmitting knowledge.
The session closed on an optimistic note, asserting that while AI is a powerful catalyst for change, the heart of education lies in human connection, dialogue, and the ability to ask the right questions. Participants agreed that a truly forward-looking educational model will emerge not from choosing between East and West or human and machine, but from integrating the best of all to build a more inclusive and insightful future of learning.
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A university lecturer in the United States says many students are increasingly relying on ChatGPT to write essays—even about the ethics of AI—raising concerns about critical thinking in higher education.
Dr Jocelyn Leitzinger from the University of Illinois noticed that nearly half of her 180 students used the tool inappropriately last semester. Some submissions even repeated generic names like ‘Sally’ in personal anecdotes, hinting at AI-generated content.
A recent preprint study by researchers at MIT appears to back those concerns. In a small experiment involving 54 adult learners, those who used ChatGPT produced essays with weaker content and less brain activity, as recorded by EEG headsets.
Researchers found that 80% of the AI-assisted group could not recall anything from their essay afterwards. In contrast, the ‘brain-only’ group—those who wrote without assistance—performed better in both comprehension and neural engagement.
Despite some media headlines suggesting that ChatGPT makes users lazy or less intelligent, the researchers stress the need for caution. They argue more rigorous studies are required to understand how AI affects learning and thinking.
Educators say the tool’s polished writing often lacks originality and depth. One student admitted using ChatGPT for ideas and lecture summaries but drew the line at letting it write his assignments.
Dr Leitzinger worries that relying too heavily on AI skips essential steps in learning. ‘Writing is thinking, thinking is writing,’ she said. ‘When we eliminate that process, what does that mean for thinking?’
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