#109 Charging Ahead: Can Indian E2Ws Capture Global Markets?
Today, Miheer Karandikar writes on India’s EV exports. Adya Madhavan follows, with a piece on the promises and perils of AI in the social media sphere. Lastly, Lokendra Sharma explores what India’s attempts in digitalising its healthcare ecosystem have resulted in, in this weeks curated section.
Technology has become important not just in our everyday lives, but has also become an arena for contestation among major powers including India. The Takshashila Institution has designed the 'Technopolitik: A Technology Geopolitics Survey' to understand and assess what people think about how India should navigate high-tech geopolitics. We are sure you are going to love the questions! Please take this 5-minute survey at the following link: https://bit.ly/technopolitik_survey
Technomachy: India's EV export ambitions face a China roadblock
— Miheer Karandikar
Mahindra Motors recently released its new EV SUV models, the BE 6E and XEV 9E, competing with the likes of the MG Hector EV, Tata Curvv EV, etc. As an amateur electric car enthusiast, I admired their sleek and futuristic looks, combined with a more than 300km range. I wondered whether India has an opportunity to export these.
The bottom line is that it is very difficult. People have also started buying more and more EVs; the overall EV penetration reached 6.8% in FY24, compared to 5.3% in FY23. These also grow yearly, increasing by 41% between 2022 and 2023. However, India's homemade electric four-wheelers may not match international standards, which is probably evident in its export data. India's exports last year in e4ws were just Rs 35,584.40 lakhs. Compared to that, India's total is Rs 362,154,987.57 lakh, i.e. Rs 3621549.8 crore. India's share was about 0.001% of the total trade. China is the most significant player in this industry. Even India imports Chinese EVs, especially from companies like BYD and MG. It is the biggest exporter in the world, accounting for about 70% of the total world's production and exported value of about $36.7 billion in 2023. Successful experience in manufacturing, a good innovation and R&D ecosystem, economies of scale and massive subsidies have given it a significant advantage in making EVs and cars, taking over traditional giants like Japan and Germany.
India's EV transition has been marked by a high percentage of two (E2W) and three-wheelers (E3W). The market share of electric two-wheelers in India is steadily increasing: The market share rose from 0.4% in 2020-21 to 5.4% by early 2023. Further growth of 13% is expected in the coming years. E2W sales in India have been significantly boosted by government subsidies like FAME II, rising fuel costs, and increasing environmental awareness, which have driven the demand for electric vehicles. India has added electric two-wheelers to its export basket, too. India exported 3.6 million units of two-wheelers (ICE) in FY23. Even here, India is dominated by China. India only exported 1,609 E2W units in FY24, starkly contrasting China's 15.046 million units in the same year. The demand for E2Ws and E3Ws is also much less than for four-wheelers.
What are the opportunities? This is such a large volume that the EU recently put up massive tariffs for Chinese EV imports, up to 45%. Their main reasoning is the massive subsidies the Chinese government gives EV companies. Does India have an advantage there, then? A report in ET shows that exports to France increased from Rs 168.47 lakhs in 2022 to Rs 2,367.27 lakhs in 2023, and those to Germany increased by Rs 85.35 lakhs in 2022, surging to Rs 343.28 lakhs in 2023. These numbers don't stand up to China's, however. China exported about $20 billion worth of EVs to the EU in 2023. India isn't among the top 5 EV exporting countries in the EU. Even in general, the world is shifting to EVs. Electric car sales in 2023 were 3.5 million higher than in 2022, a 35% year-on-year increase. India's automobile industry is significant, contributing to 7.1% of GDP and a staggering 49% of manufacturing GDP. India is saying a rapid rise in EVs being introduced, even by domestic players. Is this the time then to shift to focus more on exports?
Technopolitik: AI: The Social Media Savior or Saboteur?
— Adya Madhavan
With the growing prevalence of artificial intelligence, more and more applications for it are found over a range of spheres. One area where its applications are part of everyday life is AI’s role in social media platforms. Today, platforms utilise AI across the board– making it a part of how content is created, consumed and interacted with.
Content recommendations are based on analysis done by algorithms to curate feeds that are personalised in a bid to increase used engagement. Tiktok for instance, is touted as an example for how AI can excel in this area. Advertising has also taken on a new form since the advent of artificial intelligence, with eerily personalised ads becoming increasingly frequent. User data is analysed and relevant ad recommendations are provided to users.
In the content moderation space, AI-powered tools filter through online platforms removing messages that are deemed inappropriate or hostile. This has been implemented in both the 2024 French Open as well as the Paris Olympics, where AI analysed comments online and removed those that were categorised as hate targetting athletes.Another growing challenge online is the rise of AI-generated deepfakes, but now AI is also being utilised to detect deepfakes.
In terms of the content that is created, with AI’s ability to produce both realistic visual material and text, it is becoming increasingly hard to distinguish between AI-generated and human-made content. Since ChatGPT was released into the public domain early last year, according to Wired, over 54% of English-language posts on LinkedIn are probably AI-generated.
However, how effective is AI really at moderating content? Is AI’s role in social media today bringing about positive change, or is it adding to the problem? These are some questions that are understandable to have, and a chapter in Arvind Narayanan and Sayash Kapoor’s book ‘AI Snake Oil’ focuses on answering them. As two computer scientists, they bring in analysis rooted in their technical expertise, but write in a conversational tone that makes it simpler to understand a subject this complex. Narayanan and Kapoor put forward many arguments, but here are the ones that seem most integral to understanding the AI-social media landscape:
AI’s moderation struggles: While AI can perform more rudimentary tasks when it comes to content moderation, it struggles with context and nuance, making it much less effective than human moderators would be since it lacks the ability to interpret complex social interactions. It also lacks cultural context, failing to do its job in regions with unique cultural dynamics or languages that are underrepresented. During the Rohingya crisis, Facebook’s reliance on automated translations was exemplary of this. AI’s relevance on historical data equips it to predict patterns excellently, but limit its ability to adapt to ever-changing social norms.
A bigger problem: According to the authors a larger structural issue also hinder’s AI’s ability to bring about positive change in social media platforms– the inherent structural and business models of the platforms themselves. As long as there is an emphasis on profitability and global scalability, even advanced tools such as AI are unlikely to rid social media of its problems.
A problem amplifier?: Algorithms providing recommendations can end up amplifying content that is problematic by prioritising engagement. Posts that are divisive, controversial or sensational may drive user interaction and thus be pushed forward by AI, but they can also increase social discord and exacerbate polarisation.
The biggest takeaway appears to be that while AI may play a role in social media governance, its limitations—both inherent and imposed by the platform's design—make it incapable of addressing some of the complex issues that come with social media. Complex institutional recommendations are more likely to solve some of these problems than a tool that lacks the intuition or context that is so integral to understanding human interactions.
If you like the newsletter, you will love to read our in-depth research and analysis at https://takshashila.org.in/high-tech-geopolitics.
Digitalisation of India’s health sector is happening. But why doesn’t it work?
— Lokendra Sharma
Since 2014, India has progressively inserted the ‘digital’ dimension to different aspects of governance. What started out with e-delivery of some governmental services soon branched out to finance, management of welfare and healthcare. This digitalisation covered everything from Unified Payment Interface to Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission. Aadhar formed the backbone of India’s digital public infrastructure (DPI) offerings. What is happening in India is digitalisation of different sectors (such as healthcare) as opposed to mere digitisation — the earlier is a transformative process, while the latter refers simply to the process of converting information to digital format.
The digitalisation underway in India’s health sector has rapidly expanded the attack surface available to malicious actors. It is not a surprise that there have been numerous cyberattacks targeting India’s health sector over the years. Even after about two years of the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (New Delhi) cyberattack, questions regarding modus operandi, actors, motives and patient data exposure remain.
But in addition to the cyber vulnerability, what are the other challenges that come in the way of digital transformation in India’s health sector? Inampudi et al. in their following recent review paper discuss these barriers:
Inampudi, S. et al. Barriers to Implementation of Digital Transformation in the Indian Health Sector: A Systematic Review. Humanities & Social Sciences Communications 11, 632 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-024-03081-7
Inampudi et al. scout through the databases of PubMed, PsycINFO, Science Direct, Web of Science, and Google Scholar and find 1129 studies ‘that reported digital transformation in India from inception to December 2022.’ Out of these, following a methodology involving assessment tools/methods, they zero down on 26 studies. Based on these studies, Inampudi et al. highlight nine barriers that come in the way of the digital transformation of India’s health sector. The first barrier, lack of network coverage and information technology infrastructure, covers the primary challenge in the way of any digital transformation — lack of universal digital connectivity in India. Other factors discussed by them include: ‘high installation and operating cost, lack of medical records and experts, lack of physical examination, data accuracy and misdiagnosis, data privacy and confidentiality, language and communication barriers, user barriers, and ethical, legal, and accountability concerns.’
It remains an open question whether India can overcome these aforementioned barriers — the success of digitalisation in India’s health sector hinges on this question.
What We're Reading (or Listening to)
[Opinion] Private sector push for India’s open-source challenge, By Arindam Goswami and Lokendra Sharma
[Podcast] Balancing competition and cooperation in space, By Ashwin Prasad and Rijesh Panicker
[Takshashila Blog] The Green Gets Redder: Trump’s Climate Comeback, by Adya Madhavan