Zuzanna Warso

Director of Research

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About Zuzanna

Zuzanna is the Director of Research at Open Future. She has over ten years of experience with human rights research and advocacy. In her work, she has focused on the intersection of science, technology, human rights and ethics.

Zuzanna spent more than eight years with the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights, the most prominent human rights non-governmental organization in Poland, where she has gained experience in advocacy and policy work.

She holds a Ph.D. in International Law and an M.A. in English Studies from the University of Warsaw. She has been involved in national and international interdisciplinary research and innovation projects, exploring the ethics of new technologies and their impact on human rights and freedoms. Before joining Open Future, Zuzanna cooperated with Trilateral Research, where she researched the ethical and human rights challenges posed by new and emerging technologies.

She was awarded a scholarship from the German Federal Agency for Civic Education and Robert Bosch Foundation in 2013 and joined FAM Frauenakademie München, a research institute for women’s and gender issues. In 2017 she was awarded the Marshall Memorial Fellowship, the flagship leadership development program of the German Mashall Fund of the United States.

Zuzanna passed the bar exam in April 2017 and served as the vice-president of the Human Rights Section of the Warsaw Bar Association from March 2016 until May 2017. She is a member of the Women’s Rights Group by the Polish Bar Council.

Zuzanna is a member of the advisory board of the Institute for the Ethics of AI at the Technical University of Munich.

Since 2019 she has been acting as an independent expert to the European Commission, where she is involved in the ethics monitoring of research and innovation projects.

Zuzanna is passionate about the protection of the environment and women’s rights. She is a lecturer at the School of Ecopoetics established at the Reportage Institute in Warsaw.

Zuzanna lives in Warsaw. In her free time, she devours podcasts and takes long walks in the woods with her dog Bruno.

Posts

Opinion

Open Source AI and the Paradox of Open

September 15, 2023 by: Zuzanna Warso et al.

We agree with Widder, West, and Whittaker that openness alone will not democratize AI. However, it is clear to us that any alternative to current Big Tech-driven AI must be, among other things, open.

#future of open

Opinion

Response to European Commission’s call for evidence on “virtual worlds”

May 3, 2023 by: Zuzanna Warso et al.

Open Future submitted a response concerning the European Commission's call for evidence on "An EU initiative on virtual worlds: a head start towards the next technological transition". In the submission, we showed why policymakers should consider virtual worlds as Digital Public Spaces where the public interest takes precedence over corporate objectives.

Opinion

Concerns Over the Impact of the AI Act on Open-Source R&D: LAION’s open letter

May 2, 2023 by: Zuzanna Warso

Establishing a regulatory framework that achieves the dual objectives of protecting open-source AI systems and mitigating risks of potential harm is a critical imperative for the European Union. Especially since open-source, publicly supported AI systems are crucial digital public infrastructures that would ensure Europe’s sovereignty.

#future of open

Opinion

To succeed, data commons advocates must address privacy concerns head-on

March 2, 2023 by: Zuzanna Warso

The EP's ITRE Committee has adopted its report on the Data Act. The report shows a backlash against B2G data sharing, combining concerns about personal data protection and the impact on business, competition and innovation, preventing our proposal for a more robust B2G data sharing framework and a public data commons from gaining traction across the political spectrum.

#data commons

Opinion

The Path to the Digital Decade creates room for collaboration to build Digital Public Space

January 3, 2023 by: Zuzanna Warso

The 2030 Policy Programme 'Path to the Digital Decade' allows Member States to collaborate in developing the services and platforms that are essential building blocks of Digital Public Space.

#digital public space

Analysis

A right to participation in the Digital Public Space?

December 2, 2022 by: Zuzanna Warso

The European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles for the Digital Decade is a good starting point for directing the EU Digital Strategy's emphasis toward societal goals, but an action plan to fulfill these promises is still lacking, says Zuzanna Warso.

#digital public space

Opinion

The European Media Freedom Act fails to support public interest alternatives to platforms

October 6, 2022 by: Zuzanna Warso

The EC has proposed a new regulation to safeguard media independence and plurality in the EU. Unfortunately, the European Media Freedom Act fails to support public interest-driven alternatives to commercial platforms.

#digital public space

Opinion

Net neutrality: defending the internet “as we know it” is not enough

September 21, 2022 by: Zuzanna Warso

Instead of focusing only on fixing the platforms, the EU must introduce measures that would allow the emergence of alternatives to the current fundamentally flawed system of “online malls.”

#future of open

Publications

Defining best practices for opting out of ML training

September 28, 2023 by: Paul Keller et al.

This Open Future policy brief examines the technical implementation of the EU law provision allowing authors and other rightholders to opt out of having their works used as training data for (generative) machine learning (ML) systems.

#future of open

Fields of open

July 6, 2023 by: Alek Tarkowski et al.

Fields of open is a report which consists of findings from an exploratory mapping of the movement using network analysis methods and data collected from Twitter. The first part consists of a definition of the open movement, followed by a conceptualization of the movement as consisting of distinct but connected fields of open. The second part comprises methodological information about social network analysis and data visualization. The third part includes a presentation of the network visualizations and their analysis.

#future of open

Shifting tides

June 7, 2023 by: Alek Tarkowski et al.

Our research aims to understand the current state of the open movement, as seen through the eyes of people actively involved in its endeavors and leading organizations within the movement.

#future of open

The Limits of the Fair Share Debate

April 11, 2023 by: Zuzanna Warso

This policy brief contributes to the discussion about the importance of maintaining an open internet. It posits that the struggle to maintain an unfettered exchange of information online is taking place not just at the network level but also within the domain of internet platforms and in the space occupied by content and application providers.

#digital public space

Exploring the Intersection of Openness and AI

April 7, 2023 by: Zuzanna Warso et al.

The rapid advancements in AI challenge the concept of openness on the internet, as companies use publicly available data to their advantage, frequently disregarding the concerns and welfare of other parties, such as artists and content creators, and the impacts of the tools they make available for use. There is a growing realization that the […]

#future of open

AI_Commons

January 12, 2023 by: Alek Tarkowski et al.

The AI_Commons Final Report summarizes our findings and offers recommendations for commons-based governance of AI datasets.

#future of open

AI_Commons white paper

September 28, 2022 by: Alek Tarkowski et al.

This white paper presents the case of using openly licensed photographs for AI facial recognition training datasets. The analysis is part of our exploration of how AI training datasets, and works included in those datasets, can be better governed and shared as a commons.

#future of open