India in Transition HINDI, BANGLA, & TAMIL:
"India as the 'AI Use Case Capital of the World': Socio-Economic Development as AI Hype" by Mila T. Samdub (@bulletprooflama.bsky.social) casi.sas.upenn.edu/iit/translat...
While Western AI discourse tends to focus on the mirage of AGI, in India it is sold as a quick fix that will bring 'development' to the masses.
For @casipenn.bsky.social's India in Transition, @bulletprooflama.bsky.social examines the Indian flavour of AI hype: casi.sas.upenn.edu/iit/mila-t-s...
While some have narrowed digital public infrastructure to identity-payments-data systems, DPI encompasses a broader range of systems and motivations, as recognized by growing literature and communities of practice. More on this paper by @bulletprooflama.bsky.social
To build systems that are genuinely digital, public and infrastructural -- and recognizing the range of motivations for such systems -- the piece calls for an expanded conversation about the designs and goals of digital public infrastructures.
Read it here: openfuture.eu/publication/...
What's more, the hegemonic understanding doesn't account for the real-world range of systems that are digital, public and infrastructural. As it's localized around the world today in practice the concept encompasses a range of issues from sovereignty to cloud capabilities to democratic public space.
DPI has been promoted both through abstract universal technocratic definitions and specific Indian-influenced examples of digital ID, payments and data exchanges. Yet this hegemonic version has critical blindspots: it excludes hardware, social infrastructures and democratic governance.
In my latest, I track the genealogy of "digital public infrastructure", showing all that has been excised from the concept to make it convenient for IOs, funders and govts. "Digital public infrastructure" has captured the imagination but it must be reinvigorated if it is to be worth its name.
The conversation about digital sovereignty needs to address political capture by local elites. The broad policy programme that the report calls for must go hand in hand with a political programme that builds progressive social forces against oligarchy.
The biggest beneficiaries of India's state-promoted DPI have been a surveillant state apparatus and elite capitalists, not the people. Digital sovereignty for local oligarchs instead of US or Chinese ones.
If it bypasses the people, digital sovereignty risks leading to what has happened in India over the past decade: A retrograde alliance between the state and domestic capital that has excluded the vast majority of Indians with disastrous results.
We can't assume this is the case. After decades of neoliberalism, these forces have been systematically weakened (of course, Big Tech has had a role to play here). This is a key issue of our times.
What are those conditions? Most importantly, strong people's movements, grassroots associations, civil society and unions to lead the state and hold it to account. "People and the planet" need to be organized to fight for themselves!
But there's a barely qualified assumption here that increased state sovereignty will empower people and the planet. That's only true under certain conditions.
A central claim -- one that is gaining traction around the world -- is that states are the only forces capable of countering the power of Big Tech. Which is true.
Finally read the recent "Reclaiming Digital Sovereignty" report. The authors range across several issues to work towards a progressive internationalist digital sovereignty "for people and the planet". But they miss a key fact about power today.
www.ucl.ac.uk/bartlett/pub...
This is the man who is essentially running the US.
Has maximum governance gone too far? The Indian govt has a dashboard to monitor and improve its performance on global indices. If indices are meta-measurements that collate various other measures, this dashboard is a meta-meta-measurement.
www.reporters-collective.in/trc/inside-m...
Is digital public infrastructure like roads, an essential infrastructure that others can build businesses on? Or like radio, which makes an informed citizenry possible and is a backbone of democracy? Smart, thoughtful essay engages with some of my work: www.techpolicy.press/what-is-digi...
🏗️ This opinion by @bulletprooflama.bsky.social and @chandrn.bsky.social brings more clarity to the concept of #DigitalPublicInfrastructure (DPI).
“Multiple visions of DPI are circulating today: DPI-as-roads and DPI-as-radio, as well as other variations...”
www.techpolicy.press/what-is-digi...
Today, Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) is often synonymous with the Indian model of digitalization. But DPI can and should encompass a range of approaches. In our new article, @chandrn.bsky.social and I make the case for greater specificity in our conversations about DPI.