D&T Issue 153

Hi there!

It’s issue #153 of DNT Weekly and as per usual the week has been eventful. Here’s what we’ve been reading of late.

“AI is developing at a speed way beyond our imagination. Two people could potentially do the work that used to be done by 10,” Says Amber Yu, a freelance illustrator working in China, who is now fearful of losing a livelihood. Read more here.

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Many middle-class Indians aspire to be the next Kusha Kapila or Ranveer Allahbadia. But there’s a real struggle to monetize from Instagram.

Pine Labs serves over 100K merchants, is the top issuer of prepaid payment instruments (PPI) has >₹1000Cr in revenue and is valued at $5B.

Andy Hunter’s e-commerce platform was a pandemic hit. Now he’s on a mission to prove that small businesses can scale up without selling out.

For many years, AI developments crept along at a snail’s pace. And then, everything changed. We’ve undergone a century’s worth of innovation in a little over half a decade.

Regulator warns AI-created content should embody “socialist values.”

RBI is constantly thinking of ways to revolutionise UPI payments even further and last week, they made a massive announcement. They want to introduce a new method — a direct credit line on UPI.

​​With normalcy now been restored, the skews in both demand and channels appears have stabilized. A closer look, however, reveals that disruptions across the retail value chain could impact both the brands and their distribution partners.

Sophie Hardach explores the mystery of ‘mirror-writing’. Is this skill a left-handed superpower?

We have laws to protect children from factory work. Why aren’t they protected from parents who monetise their lives online?

While it is understandable that a new technology with seemingly vast powers would raise concerns, much of the handwringing over large-language-model chatbots is misplaced. The right response to economic disruption is not to stop the clock, but to try to maximize the gains and minimize the pain.

If you are looking for a house for rent in Bengaluru, make sure you have degrees from colleges like the IIT, IIM or ISB. This is because landlords are asking for them and before renting a house want to take a look at LinkedIn profiles of people seeking their house on rent.