Best Wishes On the Eve Of The New Year

We have already explained to you the effects of software such as Deepfake. We have also written on how artificial intelligence or AI can be biased. Corporates do very little to factor in the ethical considerations in AI decision. All rectification is done later on or post facto. In the beginning of December 2020, there was a conference of the Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS). It incorporated an ethics board which will examine whether the technology suggested could have any potential side effects or whether the research would have unintended uses. Of several thousand submissions, some were flagged and some rejected.

IBM has withdrawn its facial recognition offerings for policing. Still the software is used by several police departments and city administrators. This software has bias and is faulty too.

In ethical considerations, we have to consider privacy and incorrect use of technology.

In 2018, Netflix and Amazon Prime arrived in India to offer web series on OTT platform. Prior to that Indian audience was attracted by foreign web series such as Game of Thrones — that facilitated the acceptance of Indian web series.

A movie has a duration of 2 to 2.5 hours, but for some stories this is not enough. Such stories can be offered as web series. As there is no censorship, there is full creative freedom. A smart phone user enjoys the series all by himself on his device. Web series weave the plots around sex and violence for the young audience. Anurag Kashyap, Neeraj and Vikramaditya directed Sacred Game. Hindi web series set the norms for theme and presentation. The theme should engage the audience every minute and this covers a period of 400 minutes (the length of 3 feature films). It uses mostly unnecessary sex scenes, hyped dialogue and cuss words. It ends for season 1 on a hook to keep the audience waiting for the next season. These are the ingredients of the web series. It cost Rs.100 crores to produce season one’s Sacred Game which generated an estimated revenue of Rs.900 crore. This gives an idea of the economics of the web series. If the first season is successful, the budget goes up twice or thrice for the subsequent seasons.

On the lines of Sacred Game, other web serials were launched — Mirzapur, Patallok, Asur and Family Man. On Amazon Prime, there was Breathe. There was a hero challenged by the circumstances. He commits crime. There is a bold inspector who investigates the crime. There is a tragedy in the lives of both these characters. It affects them psychologically. There are references to Indian mythology and characters. Along with this story line, there are stories of terrorism and Indian investigators who are at beautiful places abroad to crack the crime. Shrikant Bashir on SonyLiv is an illustration of this type. There is a mix of terrorism, bank scam, ebola virus in the series. Some series are exceptions to this trend — Panchayat, Made in Heaven, Taj Mahal, Bandish Bandit. The last one allows the enjoyment of Indian music.

Smart TV makes it possible to see the series on big TV in the drawing room with the family. Internet penetration has allowed even rural audience to enjoy web series.

As the audience expanded and family viewing too, the exaggerated elements were diluted. It was self-regulation. It is to be seen whether it will continue to be self-regulated or censorship will be imposed on it. What format the web series assumes after censorship is a matter of speculation. It should be different from the traditional mother-in-law and daughter-in-law TV serials. All the web series respect the regional elements. They portray the life style, local politics and power centres. Serials such as Mafia, Naxalbari and Betal narrated the struggle of Naxalites and nomads. However, the treatment is superficial and not deep enough.

Web series have changed the costing of entertainment industry. They threw open the doors for talented actors. Even some neglected actors came into focus. Many new producers have come on the scene. As the medium has tremendous reach, even locally produced serials get a wider audience.

Deepfake is a notorious technology which could spread misinformation and besmirch the reputation. It takes a person’s image and animates it. It then enables the animated image to mouth whatever the software directs it to say in the voice of that person.

To illustrate its misuse, Channel 4, a broadcaster in Britain put on air the Queen’s Christmas address , in which she is less royal and dances a gig. It is obvious that Queen herself would never do such a parody. It was done through Deepfake.

This technology makes the real indistinguishable from the fake. It is misleading. There could be confusion between what is authentic and what is fake. It is purported to be genuine and a viewer is at a disadvantage. Editorial validation before the material is published is the only safeguard. It is carried out in professional news organisations but is not available on social media.

Online gaming is a fledgling industry. Several Indian states have banned online ganing and several more are considering to ban it. The states see online ganing as gambling which may bring a family to distress. There is no clarity between online gaming and gambling or what we call games of skills and games of chance. All games have been tarred with the same brush. Games can be classified as games of skills, games of chance, and games of skill and chance. There is also confusion about what gambling is. Gaming websites have been facing the brunt of such legislation. Overseas gaming sites take advantage of this situation. Gaming was so far self-regulated and the respective federations govern these domains. India has the potential to emerge as the centre for world’s fantasy sports. What is needed is the enabling policy environment.

Virtual games are a new trend. The fantasy sports have become a new source of addiction. There are apps which promise lacs of rupees as rewards. India currently has no legislation to control the online betting and gaming industry. Though state government ban the fantasy sports mobile application, such bans could kill an industry that attracts investment and generates jobs. Hence legislation and transparent policies to manage this sector are needed.

There is a need to have a gaming regulator to monitor this industry.

The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) has reported that both Facebook and Google has agreed to co-operate and assist one another in the case filed against them for online advertising dominance. It is described by Facebook as a big deal strategically. Both the companies facing the law suit treat it as the fight for their existence. If the authorities win the case, Google and Facebook could lose their grip on digital advertising and consumer data. There is a risk that either or both of these companies could be broken up. The outcome would take years to sort out.

As we know, the Texas-based SolarWinds network management tool Orion’s update was embedded with malware to hack the systems in the USA — affecting 50 organisations including important departments of the government, such as Treasury, State and Homeland Security. This attack has allowed large-scale data transfer from American government agencies, including perhaps one that manages nuclear weapons. This has been managed through a third party software. Thus software from trusted sources can be used to implant trojans in the target system. In the field of computers, everything is suspect till tested and validated to be kosher. India while digitising must be aware of the vulnerability of her systems to cyber attacks. The existing cyber security system, as the US experience shows, may not be enough. Further strengthening of the security systems is called for.

Reliance thinks of using 5G standalone architecture. Here a network has to be built with a new 5G core and new radios which work on 5G bands.

In a non-standalone network, the telcos can continue to use the core of the 4G LTE network for 5G.

Currently only China, South Korea and Singapore have standalone 5G. Many other countries may opt for the technology in the next two years.

5G standalone has several advantages. It has low latency, and hence it can power machine-to-machine operations and enable automation. This could be the backbone of smart cities.

There is growing virtualisation of the 5G core. It means less hardware components, which brings down the costs.

This network can power autonomous vehicles and make remote robotic surgeries possible. It can offer private cloud to enterprise customers.

5G network would have more revenue streams — from customers as usual, from new services to enterprise customers, from private cloud and private networks offered to enterprise customers.

Jio has already designed the new radios. It could make them in-house or source them from outside. It has developed 5G core software, and will only need to buy some hardware,