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Anthony Butler

Anthony Butler is based in Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia where he currently Chief Technology Officer for IBM Middle East and Africa. He is focused on emerging technologies and applications.

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AI might not take jobs but it will take tasks

Artificial intelligence (AI) and specifically Large Language Models (LLMs) are what is defined in the economics literature, as a General Purpose Technology.  These are specific classes of technology that demonstrate improvements over time, become pervasive throughout the economy, and typically lead to the spawning of complementary innovations and positive spillover

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On impossible grammars and Large Language Models

The interest in Large Language Models (LLMs) has led to a resurgence of popular interest in cognitive science.  One of the interesting questions that come up is whether these models understand language; that is, whether they have developed some form of cognitive ability.  The results of models such as GPT4

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Artificial intelligence and moral panics

It has been interesting to observe the moral panic that has emerged around artificial intelligence; much of it accelerated by the appearance of ChatGPT.  Whilst there are different flavours, such as the "AI will destroy our jobs" canard, the most extreme concerns seem to relate to the "AI alignment" problem:

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Saudi Arabia and the space economy

Originally published in Arab News here. The recent establishment of a Higher Council for Space headed by Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman and the subsequent expansion of the Communications and Information Technology Commission to include space highlights its strategic importance to the Kingdom’s future. It builds on prior Saudi-led

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Cross-border data flows and economic value

I had the opportunity to recently speak at an event hosted by Asia House and Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business (CGSB) on the global data landscape.  In this talk, I discussed the following points: 1. Today, cross-border data flows account for a larger share of global GDP than the

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On centeralised exchange risks and how to fix them

The recent collapse of digital assets/currency exchange FTX again highlights the risks associated with centeralised digital assets exchanges.   This risk, however, mostly relates to operational and business aspects of how these exchanges operate – as opposed to the blockchain technology itself – but also highlights the need for us to continue

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The future of work in the metaverse

Originally published in Arab News. In the 1930s, Nobel Prize-winning economist Ronald Coase wrote a seminal essay on the nature of the firm, explaining the reason for the emergence and growth of companies. He argued that firms are what they are because of transaction costs.  It is not cost-effective to

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Intellectual Property and the Metaverse

Amidst all the excitement about the metaverse, it's always interesting to think about what else needs to evolve; what are the second-order effects that we need to consider.  There are, broadly, an interesting set of legal issues and questions that arise from the metaverse.  I have written, for example, about

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A “Turing Test” for Virtual Worlds

I recently read Reality+:Virtual Worlds and the Problems of Philosophy by New York University's Professor David Chalmers.  It's one of the more interesting and intellectually challenging books written on what is today being characterised broadly as the "metaverse": with Chalmers using the emergence of virtual worlds as a mechanism

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Interview with MEA Finance on applications of AI in financial advisory services

Originally published at https://issuu.com/meafinance/docs/september-2022/22 At the beginning of 2022, several new Robo Advisory platforms were launched in GCC, can we expect to see many more coming online in the near future? The first robo-advisors appeared in 2010 and the market has grown rapidly in