The World Internet Conference (WIC) Wuzhen Summit has been held annually since 2013. Upholding the concept of “building a community with a shared future in cyberspace”, the Summit has been committed to building consensus on the wisdom of all parties and deepening digital cooperation for a decade. It has developed into a high-end platform for the Internet governance system shared and governed by all, as well as for exchanges and cooperation in digital economy, which has received wide attention, support and recognition from the international community. Since July 2022, the WIC has been institutionalized as an international organization headquartered in Beijing and supported by a variety of members.
2023 WIC Wuzhen Summit will be held from November 8th to 10th in Wuzhen, Zhejiang Province, China. With the theme of “Creating an Inclusive and Resilient Digital World Beneficial to All– Building a Community with a Shared Future in Cyberspace”. Cross-border e-commerce will be one of the sub-themes. To facilitate the discussion of all the parties, the WIC established a dedicated working group consisting of the representatives from governments, international organizations, businesses, research institutes and civil societies. The Working Group’s Inaugurating Meeting was held on 30 June 2023. The WIC Deputy Director, Mr. Liang, gave the opening remark and highlighted the importance of the Working Group. Prof. Xue was appointed as the principal investigator to draft the WG’s Report and Vice-Chair of the Working Group. Prof. Xue presented on the background, goal, work plan of the Working Group. The other members of the WG exchanged their views on the new trends in the development of international digital cooperation and made the proposal on the work plan and future development. All the members agreed that the WG will play a vital role and work toward innovation-driven development.
24 September 2022, Professor Xue was invited to give a keynote speech on “AI-assisted Domain Name Dispute Resolution Mechanisms” at the 2nd International Conference on AI and Judicial Big Data, co-organized by Huazhong University of Science and Technology and Hubei High People’s Court. Prof. Xue discussed the ethical issue in deployment of AI in judicial proceedings and suggested that ADR (like domain name dispute resolution mechanism) may be more suitable area to implement pilot AI systems. AI may provide effective proceeding management for domain name dispute resolution, including receiving and servicing the Parties’ files, verifying the Parties’ identities and organizing cross examination. AI selection of adjudicators may considerably minimize the bias and prejudice and better serve the goals of independence and impartiality. Although AI cannot substitute the adjudicators’ judgement and discretion, it can be very valuable to verify the basic facts such as the information of the Applicant’s trademark registration and/or the Respondent’s domain name registration. It can help the adjudicators to complete the fact checking in the expedited proceedings. Domain name dispute resolution mechanism that is already networked, digitized and standardized can easily adapt to automation powered by AI. In addition, its characteristic of non-exclusive to judicial remedy is another layer of guarantee for AI pilot implementation.