Category: Economics
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Cabbies in Mexico City and Beyond – II
Locals loudly complain about traffic in Mexico City, especially during peak hours. That is also less than ideal for app-driven cabbies. However, I usually tell both cohorts that, comparatively speaking, traffic in the City is not that bad. The situation in other large cities in the Global South I have visited is much worse. In…
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Cabbies in Mexico City and Beyond
Almost two decades ago, an army of green VW Beetles operating as taxis swarmed Mexico City like an ant colony in permanent search of the next meal—except cab drivers were not working in teams but competing intensively to get the next customer. Estimates suggest that half of the almost 100k taxis endlessly circulating the City…
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AI Typology
While researching the deployment of artificial intelligence within the public sector, I encountered a limited number of precious case studies that poked a bit deeper into the benefits and risks of such a move . For the most part, that set of studies focused on public service provision, while a few explored AI’s institutional impact…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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.…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…