Category: Economics

  • Generative AI (GenAI) in the Public Sector

    Generative AI (GenAI) in the Public Sector

    It was a last-minute decision. The annual New York Film Festival was underway, and I had carefully studied its lineup. My list had four options: 1. Must see. 2. Should see. 3. See some time later on. And 4. Not really interested. The film playing that day was part of the second set. Sixty minutes…

  • Regulating AI

    Regulating AI

    The EU’s December agreement on legislation tackling AI deployment and use in the Union and beyond is yet more evidence of its global leadership in the area of digital technology regulation . A few weeks before the epic event, heavy lobbying by the usual suspects had placed the legislation’s future on the line . Generative…

  • Decolonizing AI

    Decolonizing AI

    Just like the Internet, the origins of Artificial Intelligence (AI) are linked to wars and ensuing military operations. In this case, WWII was the critical catalyst in supporting the research efforts of early pioneers such as Turing, Shannon and Wiener. Building on Turing’s theory of computation and recent developments in mathematical modeling,  two academic researchers…

  • Regulating Digital Platforms – IV

    Regulating Digital Platforms – IV

    That the EU is well ahead of the rest of the world regarding digital technology regulation is not under dispute . The recent agreement on AI regulation provides further evidence of its leadership . A more interesting question is why the Union has not been able to give birth to digital platforms and companies that…

  • Regulating Digital Platforms – III

    Regulating Digital Platforms – III

    Digital platforms are a particular case of the broader platform category and thus have distinct characteristics. At the same time, they come in different forms and shapes. Putting them into a single box is not a piece of cake. Indeed, the devil is in the details. That is undoubtedly a challenge for policymakers and regulators.…

  • Regulating Digital Platforms – II

    Regulating Digital Platforms – II

    As suggested in the first part of this post, not all platforms are digital. In fact, analog platforms are the older siblings. Its digital counterparts are undoubtedly distinct, their calling card usually being their multisided nature – operating in more than one two-sided market. However, analog multisided platforms have also existed for a long time…

  • Regulating Digital Platforms – I

    Regulating Digital Platforms – I

    By all accounts, the regulatory tide, constantly receding for so many years, is finally returning to the digital realm’s now extensive and arid shores . Indeed, digital platforms are now under the policy microscope, especially the well-known global giants whose names I do not need to echo here. These behemoths are carrying the day with…

  • Are LLMs Fully Multilingual?

    Are LLMs Fully Multilingual?

    When I first started to play with ChatGPT in December of last year, I was pleasantly surprised to discover it could handle multiple languages. Needless to say, the LLM can handle translation from and into multiple languages. But it can also take non-English prompts and provide responses in the original query language. A recent test…

  • More on AI Programming

    More on AI Programming

    In the coldhearted realm of disinformation, deepfakes seem to reign supreme, bullying all others around along the way. The fact that they have multiple personalities makes them even more insidious. Voice, text, images and video content are some of the most common, with combinations among them being a frequent occurrence. Lip-syncing the voice of a…

  • AI and Open Source – II

    AI and Open Source – II

    Linux Freedom I first heard about Linux a couple of months after returning from the 1992 UN’s Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro. I was working part-time as a Research Associate in one of the social research centers of my college while doing consultancies on my own – thus the Rio trip. The academic job…

  • AI and Open Source – I

    AI and Open Source – I

    By all accounts, the ChatGPT “revolution” has triggered a well-deserved resurgence of free software or Open Source free/Open Source software (FOSS) that, some argue, will allegedly challenge the dominance of Big Tech over LLMs. While I disagree with such a prediction, I think FOSS can still play a vital role, as it did over 20…

  • ChatGPT Productivity and Hallucinations Mix

    ChatGPT Productivity and Hallucinations Mix

    Undoubtedly, ChatGPT has taken the world by storm. Few will dare deny such a non-violent takeover. And, as expected, the now familiar digital innovation hype factory is holding yet another massive and seemingly endless ball, including reluctant doomsayers. OpenAI’s March ChatGPT API release added fuel to the hype bonfire by opening the door for developers…

  • The Dynamics of Global Development, South and North

    The Dynamics of Global Development, South and North

    The Development of Development In its beginnings, unmovable numeric rankings permeated the always slippery and bumpy development racetrack. Stuck in first place were a selected group of countries labeled as developed, even though many were still rebuilding their economies after the bloody World War II that killed 3 percent of the world’s total population. Led…

  • The Real Structures Sustaining the Cyberspace Imaginary – II

    The Real Structures Sustaining the Cyberspace Imaginary – II

    History Matters Following the historical evolution of the Internet and Cyberspace sheds light on the origins of the “superhighway” and “virtual” metaphors, depicted in the first part of this post. Useful summaries from a pure infrastructural perspective are available from the NFS and UCSD, the latter furnishing cool schematic diagrams of the overall network architecture.…

  • The Real Structures Sustaining the Cyberspace Imaginary – I

    The Real Structures Sustaining the Cyberspace Imaginary – I

    Recreating the Imaginary If I were to ask another human being (not ChatGPT) for directions on how to get to Cyberspace, most would probably think I am joking. Others might consider me an imbecile or conclude I must be flying high on drugs. Finally, a selected few might quickly flash their super smartphones and try…