This year’s Technology and Innovation Report from UNCTAD (the United Nations Commission on Technology and Development) analyzes the ways “frontier technologies” like artificial intelligence may increase or decrease existing inequalities, “within and between countries.” I wrote some of the background material for the report. On April 27, the UNCTAD staff presented the main points of the report for other UN staff. They asked me to comment on the report based on my previous research on the topic. Over the years, my colleagues and I have learned many lessons about these relationships and I used some of these observations to frame my comments.
I will link the seminar materials here when they are ready. In the meantime, you can read what I said in this document. The book I refer to is Innovation and Inequality: Emerging Technologies in an Unequal World, co-edited with Dhanaraj Thakur and published by Edward Elgar.
Finding My Place 