Author: Nikhil Pahwa

Looking forward to 2025

I have 2 resolutions for 2025:

  1. Write weekly
  2. Get healthy

I’ve had no resolutions for the last few years. Only targets. I’ve done well with some of the targets: primarily the financial ones, and they’ve brought in a weekly discipline that has served me well. Doing personal reviews every week has helped me stay on top of things. My health goals have not been met for a few years: it is difficult and even when I’m progressing well, I end up caving. This quarter begins with a renewed focus, and I have set myself a high target that I probably won’t meet, but I work better with tough targets rather than easy ones.

The write weekly target is important as well. I’ve found that writing helps me focus, think and ideate. While I maintain notes well, I’m reading (social media, unfortunately) much more than writing. A writing discipline is also important: it enables thinking that stacks up, and builds upon itself. Writing is also my preferred art form, and the soapstones I have kept remain unchiseled.

2024 was a mixed year for me. The positives:

  1. Spending time with the boy, especially reading, and seeing him learn to walk, talk develop motor skills, and his ever expanding vocabulary. I can’t wait to teach him concepts, explore art, and how to think about things.
  2. Travel: New countries visited include Brazil and Austria. I really enjoyed a short break at Paraty, and spending time with my friend Thomas in Rio and Vienna. The return to Riga (Latvia) was unexpected: I had never thought I’d go there twice in a lifetime, and I thoroughly enjoyed the trip. The end of the year in Singapore was wonderful, spending with my Asia21 friends, and meeting old friends again. I’ll be back in Singapore in 2025, for sure.
  3. Speaking: my highlight was speaking on India’s ban on Tiktok at NATO Stratcom’s Social Media conference in Riga. Speaking on Net Neutrality at the conference in Brasilia and on Data protection and Digital Sovereignty in Rio were fun. I couldn’t make it to Saudi Arabia, but speaking at the IGF on journalism and big tech, especially on AI and its impact on Media was a lot of fun. Moderating at discussion on AI at the Asia21 conference in Singapore was great and I got several pings regarding how much people appreciated my moderation.
  4. In terms of papers, I wrote one on the impact on AI on Media.
  5. Work began regarding the launch of some AI projects that still in stealth mode. We’re moving slowly with this but I think we should see a launch in 2025. It feels good to start something new.
  6. I taught two workshops to journalists on how to use AI for work. This was very well received and I realise now how much I enjoy teaching. Not a priority for 2025, but who knows 🙂

The plan for 2025:

  1. Get healthy. It’s about time
  2. Write more: more editorials, more columns, more blog posts, more tweets and linkedin posts
  3. Reimagine Medianama’s editorial, and roll it out. Start over, and prepare for the impact of AI.
  4. Build out the AI business and learn something new.
  5. Create a finance course for my nieces, helping them understand money and economics.
  6. Travel more. Jump into the ocean at least once this year. Get healthier because I want to do scuba diving next year.
  7. Take the boy to the zoo, to museums and for music. Not sure if he’ll be able to play cricket in Y2/3, but football should be easier.

Deepfakes and elections

Two things stood out for me from our discussion on deep fakes and democracy on Wednesday:

Firstly, Gautham Koorma pointed out that detection of deep fakes becomes much difficult when they’re published on social media, because platforms transcode the content. With minor modifications, comparing hashes can become fruitless exercise. This means that on the whole, detecting deep fakes on social media is not possible with 100% accuracy, even if the deep fake is being compared with an existing dataset. Holding safe harbor to ransom is thus not the right approach.

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On OpenAI and the use of AI in warfare

OpenAI has quietly changed its terms to allow it to work with Military and for Warfare. This is a worrying development, especially since OpenAI has scraped a large amount of publicly available data from across the world. While it says that its tech should not be used for harm, that doesn’t mean they can’t be used for purposes that aid military and warfare.

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On streaming and censorship

In terms of Netflix removing Annapoornani, why are we even surprised? This is the rule of the mob, and we’ve seen this before when theaters used to be attacked in India, for films that, at times, people hadn’t even watched, but came along because everyone loves a riot. As someone who had once participated in our discussion on content regulation once told me, beheti ganga mein haath dho liye.

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Two ideas for social media platforms to protect users who are receiving targeted abuse.

A journalist for another publication just rang me up asking about what can be done in India for addressing online abuse against the LGBTQI community. I really don’t have community specific solutions, but I do feel that there are two product changes that social media platforms can make in order to provide users with agency to protect themselves against targeted abuse online:

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The real problem with AI fakery

As we hurtle towards India’s Deep Fakes Elections, I write in today’s Time of India about the risk of 2024 being India’s Deep Fake Elections. A few points:

1. The rise of deep fakes presents both exciting and concerning implications for entertainment and societal discourse. From resurrecting iconic stars in movies, and having your favorite singers sing songs they never did, to enabling multi-language political campaigns, the technology’s potential is profound.

Continue reading The real problem with AI fakery