I'm excited that I can finally share what I've been working on for the past 9 months: The United Nations 2025 Human Development Report: "A matter of choice: People and possibilities in the age of AI" 🧵 hdr.undp.org/content/huma... - ThreadSky

jbakcoleman.bsky.social • 2 days ago

I'm excited that I can finally share what I've been working on for the past 9 months:

The United Nations 2025 Human Development Report: "A matter of choice: People and possibilities in the age of AI" 🧵

https://hdr.undp.org/content/human-development-report-2025

Comments

jbakcoleman.bsky.social•2 days ago

Updating the HDI is a key function of this report, and the picture is sobering:

We have yet to recover from pandemic-era setbacks; and inequality is increasing. Development pathways through manufacturing and exports are narrowing, as conflicts and crises abound.

jbakcoleman.bsky.social•2 days ago

Against this backdrop, Artificial intelligence has expanded. Not only in what it can do, but in who uses it and how. We surveyed 21 countries and found that use is broad and widespread---future use is expected to increase. This rings true across levels of HDI.

jbakcoleman.bsky.social•2 days ago

Will this help or hinder human development? Too often we try to predict, based on subtle differences between us and machines; speculating on future trajectories.

We argue this is misguided; we should look at the space of complementarity, and shore up the gaps and inequalities between humans.

jbakcoleman.bsky.social•2 days ago

Borrowing data from @mohammadatari.bsky.social; we show that AI reflects very high-HDI nation's culture and values. These gaps are certainly more important that relative performance on coding assays and bar exams.

Digitial divides of decades past embodied in training data and design.

jbakcoleman.bsky.social•2 days ago

The trouble is that current AI is being developed by and for silicon valley billionaires pursuing wealth and their vision of the future. @adambecker.bsky.social's book is a must read on this... We cannot expect technosolutionism to pan out; nor fear technodeterminism.

https://tinyurl.com/bjz79yz3

jbakcoleman.bsky.social•2 days ago

So what do we do?

We advocate for building complementarity economies, innovating with intent, and investing in capabilities that count. These are choices we can make to ensure AI augments human's rather than chases fraught replacement prone to failure.

impcus.bsky.social•2 days ago

What is this measuring exactly? "Answers" and " responses" to what?

jbakcoleman.bsky.social•2 days ago

Details here:

https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/5b26t_v1

davidmordecai.com•2 days ago

📌

sharonaris.bsky.social•2 days ago

📌

caelestian.bsky.social•2 days ago

📌

yanbasque.com•2 days ago

Weird choice to illustrate the report with low-quality AI-generated images.

jbakcoleman.bsky.social•2 days ago

Worth noting that the cover images/chapter images were generated by Therese Severinsen Marques at Studio Mnemonic, a professional graphic designer with twenty years of experience who has worked on previous covers and illustrations for reports.

jbakcoleman.bsky.social•2 days ago

My understanding is that this was a deliberate choice by a professional to reflect the questions raised in the report rather than simply for convenience.

You can find more about their art, work and process here:

https://www.studiomnemonic.com/

yanbasque.com•2 days ago

It was a choice all right.

Obviously a lot of work went into this report. I don't mean to dunk on it, but it's disappointing to see this sort of thing.

tspampatti.bsky.social•1 day ago

Yeees! Congratulations!

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