AI and inequality: How smart machines exacerbate demographic bias and inequality

This topic was first presented at the Asia Global Institute (AGI) on the campus of the University of Hong Kong  (HKU) on 11 Jan 2019. It was subsequently also shared at: The Conference Board of Canada - CBC (Banff): 17 Oct 2019 Oliver Wyman (Montreal): 03 May 2019 HKU SPACE (Hong Kong): 28 Mar 2019 Centre for the Study of Living Standards - CSLS (Ottawa): 18 Mar 2019 Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business - CKGSB (Beijing): 21 Jan 2019 The version presented at the Conference Board of Canada (National Immigration Centre) is available here.

How the English language’s disproportionate influence skews global narratives

No one questions English’s status as the world’s go-to language for business, tech, tourism and academia, but that popularity has also made it disproportionately influential on news. In a chapter of Hostwriter’s Unbias the News: Why Diversity Matters for Journalism, journalist, writer and managing editor of the Global Investigative Journalism Network Tanya Pampalone looks at how English’s prominent status can lead to skewing of entire narratives. We break down an excerpt of that chapter published for GIJN and look at how this inequality also means missed opportunities for interactions between the non-native and non-English speaking world, creative or otherwise. By the Numbers Kai Chan, a distinguished fellow at the INSEAD Innovation and Policy Initiative, put together the Power Language Index in 2016, which measures which languages in the world hold the most influence based on five key factors. (G)eography: countries spoken, land area, tourists (inbound) (E)conomy: GDP, PPP, Exports, FX market, SDR composition (C)ommunications: Native speakers, second-language speakers, language family size, tourists (outbound) (K)nowledge & Media: Internet content, feature films, Top 500 universities, academic journals. (D)iplomacy: United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Supranational Organizations (SNOs). Based on these factors, Kai presented the world’s top 10 languages, their respective number…

K19: Transformation of economies: The role of technology and human capital in rising economies

I spoke at the Kazakhstan Growth Forum 2019 (K19) on 19 Sep 2019. The title of my presentation was "The transformation of economies: The role of technology and human capital in rising economies". This was my second time at the KGF and quite a few people remembered me from my 2016 talk. Hopefully, there will be more KGFs in my future. The Kazakhs are fun and gracious hosts. The presentation can be found here

LangFest: Is the English language too powerful? / L’anglais est-il trop fort?

The below is my presentation at LangFest 2019. Le dessous est ma présentation au LangFest 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAET9DY2NOY English is the most powerful language from a global perspective (as measured by the Power Language Index). At the local level, even in places where it does not have status, English can still overwhelm the local language(s). This presents a dilemma for societies that want to participate in a globalised world yet retain and protect their local tongue. The power dynamics of Montreal are examined using the lens of the Power Language Index. L'anglais est la langue la plus puissante au niveau mondial (selon le «Power Language Index» ou «Indice des langues influentes»). Au niveau local, même dans les endroits où il n’a pas de statut, l’anglais peut toujours submerger la/les langue(s) locale(s). Cela pose un dilemme aux sociétés qui souhaitent participer à l'économie mondiale tout en conservant et en protégeant leur(s) langue(s) locale(s). Les dynamiques linguistiques de Montréal sont examinées en utilisant le «Power Language Index». Bio: Dr Kai L. Chan is a Distinguished Fellow at INSEAD. Previously he was a special adviser to the UAE federal government on competitiveness and statistics, where he focused on that country’s positioning on global performance…

Interview Kai Chan & María Ortega García

The below is an interview I did for the 2019 edition of LangFest (a polyglot conference) in Montreal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr79TLO2bX8 Kai L. Chan Bio: Dr Kai L. Chan is a Distinguished Fellow at INSEAD. Previously he was a special adviser to the UAE federal government on competitiveness and statistics, where he focused on that country’s positioning on global performance indices. Prior to his stint in the UAE, Dr Chan served as an associate and the in-house economist for a consumer finance merchant banking firm in Manhattan. Before that, he worked in the Singapore office of a global management consulting firm. Chan’s expertise/research cover education, income distribution, migration, government & policy, and performance measurement. He is the creator of the Power Language Index, Gender Progress Index, and Intelligence Capital Index. Dr Chan holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Toronto and PhD from Princeton University. Kai grew up in Toronto, Canada, but currently resides in Montreal. He speaks English, French, Cantonese, Mandarin and German, and is currently learning Russian. Kai L. Chan, PhD est chercheur («Distinguished Fellow») à l’INSEAD. Il a été conseiller spécial en compétitivité et statistiques auprès du gouvernement fédéral des Émirats arabes unis, fonction dans le cadre de…

WEF: AI-powered automation will have an ethnic bias

Kai Chan Distinguished Fellow, INSEAD Innovation and Policy Initiative The Fourth Industrial Revolution, with artificial intelligence (AI) as one of its principal drivers, promises big changes. AI automation is expected to lead to, among other things, large disruptions in the labour market. A 2013 Oxford study estimated that almost half of employment in the US is at risk of computerization. Similarly, a 2017 McKinsey report suggests that by 2030 one-third of work activities could be displaced by automation. Some countries, industries and professions are more susceptible to these risks, which means these changes will lead to redistributive effects. That is, AI is expected to lead to increased economic inequality both across and within countries. But this is not the first time that a technological revolution has threatened jobs and to upend society. The First Industrial Revolution generated similar concerns and was the catalyst of the "Great Divergence" in cross-country incomes; nations that industrialized became rich, while those that did not were left behind. The gap has grown with each successive jump in technological progress. Although AI automation will bring about significant productivity gains for society as a whole, it will nevertheless spawn winners and losers. Economists usually speak of such…

LangFest: Dîner LangFest: Kai L. Chan

The below is an interview I did with the LangFest organisers. Le dessous est mon interview avec les organisateurs du LangFest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn_2piPkaK4 #LangFest19 #LangFestConferenciers www.kailchan.ca Кай Л. Чан

PAW: Measuring mobility

A letter to the Princeton Alumni Weekly (PAW). July 10, 2019 (Volume 119, Number 15) The article on economic mobility (Life of the Mind, May 15) seems to confuse economic mobility with economic growth. Most economists measure economic mobility as intergenerational movement along the income-distribution ladder (rather than by absolute incomes). That is, to what extent do offspring track their parents’ position on the income distribution ladder at similar age profiles. The fact that 90 percent of children born in 1940 ended up earning more money than their parents was a result of a post-war economic boom whose gains were broad across the population. That only 50 percent of those born in the 1980s earn more than their parents is largely because median income has stagnated since about 1980 in spite of growth in average income, due to increasing income inequality; i.e. growth has been mostly captured by the elite. Yes, economic mobility is lower now than before, but this is expressed through what economists call the income beta: how well an offspring’s position in income distribution is predicted by their parents’ standing. A higher beta (lower mobility) — what we see now relative to the past — means (broadly…

The 10 best languages for business

Savvy business owners understand that there is a multitude of opportunities in targeting foreign audiences. After all, native English speakers only make up 4.9% of the global population. But translation strategy is more than producing your content in various languages and sending it out to the world in hopes of attracting new audiences. A plan for prioritizing the languages you target will lead to quicker returns and better efficiency. First, if your research shows that you have a strong demand in specific locales but haven’t yet translated your content for them, then you have some low hanging fruit to pick. But what if you’re launching a new product or you’re already established your in primary foreign markets and aren’t sure where to target next? In this post, we’ll provide the ten best languages for business and why you should consider targeting them for translation. The Most Useful Languages for Business When researching which languages to target, a common approach is to focus on the world’s most popular languages. While this is a good starting point, it fails to consider cultural and diplomatic factors that directly correlate with the translation ROI of a language. Dr. Kai Chan of INSEAD has published a report that tackles…

Exploring the world’s top power languages

The dominance of English worldwide as a lingua franca is well documented, but there are other languages that can also afford their speakers more power than others. Speaking a language can help you unlock a host of opportunities, whether it’s to travel overseas or perhaps connect with another language group in your own country. Some languages have the ability to unlock more opportunities than others, and speaking certain languages can positively alter an individual’s life prospects quite dramatically. So how do you measure the power and importance of a language? One obvious way to do that is to count how many people speak it. But that’s less helpful than asking who speaks that language. Languages gain power if they are used by powerful groups, whether that’s measured in economic, political or military terms. In colonial countries, it’s common for a small language group to dominate over a much larger language population. So the number of people speaking a language is less important than the power that group holds. Sharing a language with a relatively powerful group empowers the individual and tends to open up a greater set of opportunities for them. Measuring power in language The Power Language Index (PLI)…