Publications

Based on reflections from a workshop with 18 of India's leading thinkers, this report explores the meaning of digital sovereignty, assesses its feasibility, examines who benefits from such an agenda, and unpacks the new policy conundrums it raises.

2024 was a big year for Digital Futures Lab and we have much more in store for 2025, including projects on Open Source AI, AI and Public Health, and Regulating Voice Technologies in India. Read on for a brief preview of things coming up!

In this blog, Shreeja Sen, co-author of our report "Generative AI and the Future of Work in India," addresses the growing concern over job losses as the most significant disruption caused by GenAI. She suggests ways in which India can respond.

AI may be a game-changer for climate action, but it also comes with hidden environmental and social costs. Urvashi writes for ENSURED experts blog highlighting things policymakers should keep in mind when trying to limit AI’s climate footprint.

Anushka Jain writes about India's progress in developing and implementing 'Responsible AI' frameworks.

This report unpacks the impact of rapid GenAI adoption on India’s future of work. Using foresight methodologies, it imagines layers of GenAI’s potential impacts, identifies key levers of change and policy pathways towards inclusive labour futures.

From a successful symposium to three op-eds, to a whole host of events in partnership with some established organisations and professionals in the field, read on for updates on the last two months of 2024 at DFL.

This report focuses on ways of strengthening linkages between grassroots and policy organisations, for the lived experiences of girls and women to be better reflected in dominant policy imaginaries and interventions.

Harleen Kaur and Sarah Hyder Iqbal write for the The Analysis, reflecting on the importance of a collaborative approach to science and policymaking.

Urvashi writes for The Hindu on alternative pathways to democratise Al. Not aiming to compete with or replicate the Big Tech model is essential; it should even look at championing ‘small AI’.

Climate change poses an existential threat for Asia, home to 60% of the world’s population. Given the increasing urgency to find solutions, policymakers are looking towards technology, particularly AI. Urvashi & Deepali write for the Economic Times.

What should be the priorities of India’s AI Safety Institute? Should it follow the same mandate as other countries or have a unique positioning? Urvashi outlines four key goals for India's AI Safety Institute in its early years in this HT op-ed.

Read Dona's T20 policy brief on Nature-based Solutions where she and co-author Pyrou C. present a set of recommendations for policymakers, advocating for a cautious approach in investing in tech solutions.

Urvashi was part of the T20 task force on inclusive digital transformation. It centres its efforts on elaborating recommendations to leverage digital innovations to advance SDGs of the 2030 Agenda, while ensuring inclusivity & ethical considerations.

Read Aarushi's policy brief where she provides insights into challenges in operationalising interoperability across LMICs. She also offers recommendations for the G20 on how to support DPI governance in effective and inclusive ways.

This guidebook is the key outcome of our research on gender bias in LLMs, bringing together key insights, recommendations, and tools in a structured and accessible format.

This report details the findings and insights from exploratory activities that tested how new and non-users from low-resource, non-English literate settings in India engage with LLMs.

This review fleshes out insights from flagship studies on the topics of gender bias in LLMs in English, non-English and Indian languages and offers a foundational understanding of existing concepts, frameworks, and relevant evidence.

This report provides a detailed account of gender biases across six key stages of the LLM lifecycle.

This commentary maps and critiques the rapidly expanding LLM ecosystem in India, offering a comprehensive understanding of the diverse actors, visions, and motivations shaping LLM-related activities in India.

This document provides strategic guidance for enhancing gender equity in LLM projects for app developers and institutional actors in India's LLM ecosystem.

Aarushi wrote a policy brief on gender and digital governance in the Indo-Pacific region, looking to critically examine gender mainstreaming in the region's policy landscape.

Dona and Urvashi write an op-ed for the Deccan Herald on AI Data Centres in the light of climate change crisis. Read more.

This comprehensive handbook provides a set of guiding questions & prompts to assist policymakers & researchers in evaluating the suitability & potential risks of DPI interventions within critical social sectors.

Urvashi and Sasha write for the New Indian Express on biases that developers of LLM applications must watch out for, especially with the release of the new Marathi, Telugu, and two Kannada LLMs in India.

Urvashi writes for India Today on the importance of setting the narrative straight, around the development of Artificial Intelligence and its potentials, particularly in a country like India.

Read Urvashi's contribution to 'Challenging systematic prejudices: an investigation into bias against women and girls in large language models' - a UNESCO report on gender bias and Generative AI.

Can a model of personal data as an economic asset deliver AI for social good? Listen to Urvashi talk at the Open Data Institute on AI and Infrastructures in the Global South, characterising current innovation paradigms as harmful and unsustainable.

Dona & Urvashi write for The Hindustan Times on AI's potential to support climate action, its environmental costs & the need for a more judicious & participatory approach based on an inclusive political vision, not market dynamics alone.

This report summarises key discussions held among Responsible Tech Initiative's working group members on topics related to the AI landscape in India, what responsible AI looks like for India, and more.

Read Dona's contribution to an article in Nature which examines the importance of a contextualised research agenda, grounded in a Global South context, for developing and using generative AI tools.

This report maps the current landscape of responsible computing for undergraduate computer science education in India and develops recommendations for Mozilla Foundation and USAID’s rollout of the Responsible Computing Challenge in India.

Read Urvashi's blog for The Rockefeller Foundation, where she summarises key findings from our research work on AI interventions to tackle human-caused climate change.

This policy brief identifies additional content-agnostic strategies that can be utilised to limit the spread of harmful content through platforms’ recommendation systems.

This study brings out the experiences & perspectives of girls and women as they navigate digital spaces. It also identifies the knowledge, programmatic and policy gaps regarding protecting the rights of women and girls in digital spaces.

In their policy brief for the Think20, Aarushi and Aman examine the dominant rhetoric around Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI)—characterised at present by its uncritical nature and definitional variation.

This essay demonstrates how community guidelines and terms of service around social media platforms end up reproducing the same patriarchal conditions that allow harms to take place.

As India positions itself as a staunch advocate of Digital Public Infrastructures, this op-ed shows us how developments such as this data leak are a stark reminder of the gap between the rhetoric and reality associated with DPIs.

Urvashi and Dona examine how Artificial Intelligence has been integrated into India’s judicial infrastructure, identify the actors behind this integration and articulate clear challenges and risks that have emerged as a result.

The dilution of the privacy aspects in the 2022 Bill undermines its own stated purpose of protecting Indian citizens’ data. Read a summary of some standout points in DFL's and xKDR's joint response.

Read Urvashi's op-ed offering a three-step approach to developing procurement frameworks that can support the responsible use of AI in the public sector.

This paper explores the concept of co-design between technology companies and civil society, using COVID-19 technology interventions as an entry point. It identifies the challenges for equitable co-design processes and proposes recommendations.

This graphic short highlights the challenges faced by different, integral workers in the data life-cycles specific to healthcare and agriculture in India and accompanies a report on the same.

This handbook summarises learnings from a peer learning & capacity programme we created in partnership with the Human Rights Research Council for policymakers in Africa & India, to build their capacity to understand & regulate AI in the global south.

This policy brief encapsulates DFL’s response and feedback to the draft framework NITI Aayog's draft framework for the responsible use of facial recognition technologies (FRT), given their growing use, despite proven harms and risks.

Read highlights from Aman Nair and Rishab Bailey's submitted comments on the draft Indian Telecommunications Bill, 2022.

Open data initiatives could give developing economies the edge in the fourth industrial revolution. This op-ed by Urvashi and Rishab demonstrates how India’s approach offers learnings for all. [Test change]

This brief for the UNDP Regional Bureau asks, "How can governance of digital public goods help to enable sustainable development without reinforcing existing inequities or locking in a particular vision of our development futures?"

This report presents uses of AI in India across 9 key sectors, including policing, agriculture, health, and education. It examines the opportunities, challenges and risks and identifies policy priorities to align AI with the public interest.

A workshop series on the future of gov-tech and public service delivery in India compelled us to design a game: Axiom. Set in 2032, players address challenges that arise when governments use emerging digital technologies for governance.

This policy paper examines the infrastructural roles played by Big Tech platforms in India and whether the Essential Facilities Doctrine can be an effective regulatory tool to govern them.

In this blog, Urvashi explores ‘problem diagnosis' approaches that examine how current AI imaginaries & economies have arisen, alongside the current ‘problem solving’ approaches that focus on reducing the harm produced by AI.

This article looks to answer two key questions: How are crypto-exchanges classified under the E-commerce rules, and how does this affect their obligations towards consumers?

This study examines the data practices entailed in building AI systems for healthcare and agriculture in India as a way to enquire the foundations on which the promises of AI as an instrument of social and economic progress are based.

Tech companies and investors are hailing the metaverse as the future of the web. But what are the likely human rights implications and who gets to reap the benefits? This blog post from Urvashi Aneja examines this question.

This blog explores implications of adopting a risk-based approach to regulating Artificial Intelligence in India. It cautions that risk-based approaches could contribute to a weakening of regulatory systems and displacement of democratic processes.

Read our response to Niti Aayog's proposal for Enforcement Mechanisms for Responsible AI that evaluates risk-based approaches. We also examine the role of the oversight body & the need for upstream management of technological innovation processes.

Read our comments on the Data Access and Accessibility Policy 2022 highlighting concerns around accountability, privacy, and competition; recommending that understanding the problems with the current NDSAP framework first would be better.

Read Urvashi's contribution to the 2022 annual publication from the Shanghai Institute for Science of Science. One among 52 global AI experts, her contributions focused on the limitations of risk-based frameworks around AI for developing countries.

This paper by anthropologist Jasmine Folz explores obstacles, ideological divides and the way forward for the FOSS movement in India.

This study focuses on women in India who engage in online work through freelancing platforms and microwork platforms. The findings are based on a survey with 365 respondents and 22 semi-structured interviews with women working on online platforms.

This paper examines emerging narratives around responsible tech; the persistent and deliberate responsibility gaps in socio-technical systems; and the need for an ethic of care and protection.

Exploring additions to regulate digital platforms in the latest Draft National E-commerce Policy, this blog argues that the changes help prioritise inclusive growth, and can help address some of the limitations of existing competition law frameworks.

Read our response to the MeitY white paper on National Open Digital Ecosystems (NODEs) cautioning against the development of such architectures in the absence of adequate regulatory frameworks, institutional capacities, and community engagement.

This blog post examines the recently proposed regulations for AI by the European Commission.

Read highlights from our 2020 documentation of new tech tools' usage in public health response to the COVID-19 crisis. We examined them on inclusivity, privacy, accountability, adequacy of legal frameworks, potential for misuse & scientific validity.

In this chapter for the CCG essay series ‘The Future of Democracy in the Shadow of Big and Emerging Tech,’ Urvashi argues that Big Tech is better understood as a concept, rather than a fixed set of companies.

This paper examines the challenges and risks related to the use of digital technologies to test and monitor worker health and productivity in India, concluding with a set of policy recommendations.

In this op-ed for the Economic Times, Urvashi Aneja poses five concrete steps that can meaningfully check the influence of social media giants, such as Facebook, on Indian democracy.

This report identifies the opportunities, challenges, and risks of the use of AI for healthcare, with the India section based on a workshop that brought together experts in ICT4D, AI, healthcare, public policy, along with AI companies.

This report examines the impact of Big Tech companies on Indian markets and society, and the policies needed to align Big Tech trajectories with healthy markets, individual freedoms and societal wellbeing.

In this op-ed, Urvashi makes a case for banning facial recognition, given its misuse and human rights implications.

This paper explores narratives and perspectives on the future of work in Asia through a feminist lens.

Drawing on in-depth interviews with workers on two platforms, Ola Cabs and UrbanClap in New Delhi, this paper draws attention to labour wellbeing in India’s platform economy.

Most conversations about the impact of emerging technologies on the future of work are dominated by the encounters, trajectories and needs of industrialised economies. This essay talks about what the future of work will look like in India.

This brief presents 10 social conundrums for AI trajectories in India, stemming from the inherent wickedness of AI-driven futures.

This study presents four future scenarios pertaining to the likely impact of emerging 4IR (Fourth Industrial Revolution) technologies on the future of work in India.

This study examines the likely impact of 4IR on the Future of Work in India, with specific focus on job displacement, employment conditions, and labor market inequities.

Data centres are one of the largest contributors to global warming. In this piece, Urvashi Aneja makes the case that this is an opportune moment to think ahead to a Digital India that is sustainable.