Machine learning algorithms are increasingly being used to make highly consequential decisions for citizens of the Global South. I talk to Genevieve Smith about how algorithmic decision making in the realm of financial inclusion can lead to inequitable outcomes along gender lines, how that compares to the status quo, and how we can do better as practitioners and researchers.

Genevieve Smith is the founding co-director of the Responsible and Equitable AI Initiative at the Berkley AI Research Lab and is also part of the faculty at Haas. She also serves as a Gender & AI Fellow at USAID and leads research partnerships with big tech firms.

With all the buzz surrounding AI, we're missing an understanding of how recent AI advancements affect those in the global South. I talk to Rida Qadri about ways in which generative AI fails to represent those in the Global South, what the implications of these failures are, and what's needed to do better.

Rida Qadri is an interdisciplinary scholar focusing on the cultural impacts of generative AI for people and communities in the global south. She is a Research Scientist at Google Research, and has a PhD in Computational Urban Science and Masters in Urban Studies from MIT.

Both Rida and I are speaking in our private capacities, and neither Rida's nor my views expressed in this episode necessarily represent those of our respective employers.

In Pakistan, election decisions can be dependent on either the party’s label or the party’s ideology. Currently, Pakistan’s political parties are facing a number of constraints in trying to influence the outcomes of voters’ choice during election time. Dr. Niloufer Siddiqui and Dr. Asad Liaqat discuss these constraints and how the upcoming election outcomes can be influenced by the way parties are structured and the way they interact with voters.

This is a guest episode from the "Let's Talk Development" podcast by CDPR.

Dr. Niloufer Siddiqui is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University at Albany-State University of New York (SUNY). She is a Nonresident Fellow at the Stimson Center and a Fellow at the Mahbub ul Haq Centre at LUMS. Her research interests include political violence, political behavior, the politics of religion and ethnicity, voters and foreign policy, and the politics of South Asia. Her book manuscript examines why political parties in Pakistan engage in violence or form electoral alliances with violent actors.