AI is coming for ‘content’ -- everything from advertising and novels to movies and journalism. The result is likely to be simultaneously horrific, wonderful, depressing and exciting. There will be not only creative destruction, but also lots of plain old destruction.
Having spent most of my adult life producing research, journalism and documentaries, as well as consuming escapist novels and movies, I have great sympathy for creators.&nbsp;
But for the past three years, I have been an investor and venture capitalist in AI, and this experience has shaped the message I would offer to everyone in journalism, publishing, music, advertising and Hollywood: you ignore the potential of this technology at your peril.
First, consider the prospects for film and television industry which have been contracting for years, owing to the new forms of media delivery (streaming) enabled by the internet, laptops, tablets and mobile phones.&nbsp;
The decline of cable TV and DVDs reflects a variety of factors, including video streaming, the rise of user-generated content, the democratisation of creation through inexpensive cameras and software, and the resulting competition for eyeballs from YouTube, Facebook and TikTok.
Yet throughout this decade of painful contraction, the fundamental techniques of video production did not change much. You still used real cameras to film real people and things.
Soon, though, all these real-world inputs will be obsolete, replaced by AI. The pioneers of this new world will be, without exception, startups, some of them less than a year old.&nbsp;
The $600 billion digital advertising industry is next. The leading startup in AI commercials, Higgsfield, was founded only in 2023, but its business has exploded, with revenues doubling every month, on track to exceed $1 billion this year.
DAY AFTER TOMORROW
The AI revolution is coming to the arts and the carnage in legacy industries will be awful. What the day after will look like, however, is a far more complicated question.
Personally, as a once and future filmmaker, I am excited about AI filmmaking. I would love to be able to write treatments and screenplays, feed them to my AI ‘studio’, get back a good rough cut and then hone and hone with AI until I have exactly the film I want to make, with every character, setting, movement, line of dialogue and camera angle perfect.&nbsp;
There is, however, an urgent need for new laws, system and institutions to protect intellectual property and its creators. The most discussed issue is the very real need to compensate traditional creators whose prior work is being used to train AI models. But there is also a need to protect AI creators and creations.
Far more frightening is what is happening to nonfiction — news, information sources and reference services. Here, we are already witnessing the blurring of the boundaries to the point of indistinguishability between fact and fabrication.&nbsp;
While the AI era of art excites me more than it worries me, the balance is different in the realm of truth and reality. As much as there is to celebrate, I am terrified by what AI might bring.
Journalism, like Hollywood, has already contracted. The internet forced daily newspapers, weekly magazines, radio and television news all into the same market, it destroyed the classified advertising revenues that newspapers depended on, and it spawned thousands of low-quality new entrants.
To be sure, after multiple near-death experiences, a small number of high-quality English-language news organisations emerged even stronger and with larger global audiences than before: the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Guardian, Bloomberg News, the Economist, Politico and the Reuters and AP wire services. But these outlets reach only a small minority of the population. They are also expensive to produce and their finances are fragile.
The most frequently discussed issue is AI deepfakes. These are indeed a huge problem, considering that YouTube, Facebook, Snap, X and TikTok face few obligations with regard to truth or accuracy. Soon, it will be possible to synthesise nearly undetectable fake versions of almost anyone and almost any event.
Even the most carefully trained AI models can be misused and some open-source AI models have no controls whatsoever. Yet at the same time, AI has greatly improved the quality of news and information available to the public, at least for anyone interested enough to look.&nbsp;
The major models (mainly OpenAI, Anthropic and Google), and many value-added services enabled by them, are now remarkably good. Hallucination is still a problem, but far less so than even a year ago.
Already, AI models provide a miraculous portal to knowledge for more than a billion users. I use Perplexity at least a dozen times a day, and I used it repeatedly in writing this essay — far more often than I referred to legacy publications (or Google Search).
Similarly, there has been an explosion of specialised AI services, including reference resources for lawyers, scientists, doctors, patients and now also AI therapists.&nbsp;
But there is a dark side. AI models do not create knowledge. They harvest and distribute knowledge superbly, but they are totally dependent on information created by others. We (and the models) still need Politico, the New York Times, the Financial Times, AP, Reuters and the whole world of news organisations. They alone have commissioning editors, full-time journalists and fact-checkers while AI models do not hire investigative journalists or war correspondents willing to take risks.
Yet as much as AI models depend on legacy journalism, they also profoundly threaten it in at least two ways. As in the case of Hollywood, these threats are further amplified by the fact that the legacy industry isn’t paying attention.
The first problem is direct competition. If you want to know something specific, or want to stay current with some issue, you don’t need a news publication anymore; you can just ask a model. Moreover, the currently available models can answer many questions that the news organisations cannot. Perhaps worst of all, they are cheaper — much cheaper. For individual users, they typically charge $10 per month, whereas the New York Times typically costs about $25 per month.
The AI models have a cost advantage in part because they can amortize their fixed costs across huge numbers of users. But they also benefit greatly from not paying for most of the information they use.
Currently, there is a strong moral and practical argument being made for forcing model vendors to compensate creators fairly. But this will probably require new court decisions or new laws. In the meantime, there is a very real risk that unless news organisations, journalists, writers and documentary filmmakers are compensated sufficiently, the AI industry will eventually kill the very sources on which it depends to provide accurate results.
This brings us to the second problem posed by AI: the potential destruction of trustworthy news sources as a result of overwhelming pollution from AI junk and fraud. Innumerable AI services will arise and even the major foundation models and the most careful news organisations might be degraded by skillful AI fakery that cannot be distinguished from reality. So far, the models have been trained on reality; but soon, most training ‘content’ will be AI-generated.
One can hope that news organisations will wake up, that courts and legislatures and popular demand will force AI companies to compensate journalists and researchers fairly, and that AI will give rise to a new industry of high-quality journalism. © Project Syndicate, 2026
Charles Ferguson is a technology investor, policy analyst and documentary filmmaker, including the Oscar-winning Inside Job.

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AI takeover of all media

Digital technology was supposed to disperse power. Early internet visionaries hoped that the revolution they were unleashing would empower individuals to free themselves from ignorance, poverty, and tyranny. And for a while, at least, it did. But today, ever-smarter algorithms increasingly predict and shape our every choice, enabling unprecedentedly effective forms of centralised, unaccountable surveillance and control. That means the coming AI revolution may render closed political systems more stable than open ones. In an age of rapid change, transparency, pluralism, checks and balances, and other key democratic features, could prove to be liabilities. Could the openness that long gave democracies their edge become the cause of their undoing? Two decades ago, I sketched a “J-curve” to illustrate the link between a country’s openness and its stability. My argument, in a nutshell, was that while mature democracies are stable because they are open, and consolidated autocracies are stable because they are closed, countries stuck in the messy middle (the nadir of the “J”) are more likely to crack under stress.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250828120820_b821cb0ebc88045a1b6c9b77800579ff408b2739db5950bdffd4cfa08ed07a25.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20250828120820_b821cb0ebc88045a1b6c9b77800579ff408b2739db5950bdffd4cfa08ed07a25" data-rendition-name="original" width="747" height="576" loading="lazy" alt="Can democracy survive AI?"></figure>  But this relationship is not static, it is shaped by technology. Back then, the world was riding a wave of decentralisation. Information and communications technologies (ICT) and the internet were connecting people everywhere, arming them with more information than they had ever had access to, and tipping the scales toward citizens and open political systems. From the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union to the colour revolutions in Eastern Europe and the Arab Spring in the Middle East, global liberalisation appeared inexorable. That progress has since been thrown into reverse. The decentralising ICT revolution gave way to a centralising data revolution built on network effects, digital surveillance, and algorithmic nudging. Instead of diffusing power, this technology concentrated it, handing those who control the largest datasets – be they governments or big technology companies – the ability to shape what billions of people see, do, and believe. As citizens were turned from principal agents into objects of technological filters and data collection, closed systems gained ground. The gains made by the colour revolutions and the Arab Spring were clawed back. Hungary and Turkey muzzled their free press and politicised their judiciaries. The Communist Party of China (CPC), under Xi Jinping, has consolidated power and reversed two decades of economic opening. And most dramatically, the United States has gone from being the world’s leading exporter of democracy – however inconsistently and hypocritically – to the leading exporter of the tools that undermine it. The diffusion of AI capabilities will supercharge these trends. Models trained on our private data will soon “know” us better than we know ourselves, programming us faster than we can program them, and transferring even more power to the few who control the data and the algorithms. Here, the J-curve warps and comes to look more like a shallow “U.” As AI spreads, both tightly closed and hyper-open societies will become relatively more fragile than they were. But over time, as the technology improves and control over the most advanced models is consolidated, AI could harden autocracies and fray democracies, flipping the shape back toward an inverted J whose stable slope now favors closed systems.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250828120820_58e057573acdcfa6e5ed33b7f873c7bb1b1f813a88f4db5d80f7f150bc259e9d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250828120820_58e057573acdcfa6e5ed33b7f873c7bb1b1f813a88f4db5d80f7f150bc259e9d" data-rendition-name="original" width="936" height="525" loading="lazy" alt="Can democracy survive AI?"></figure>  In this world, the CPC would be able to convert its vast data troves, state control of the economy, and existing surveillance apparatus into an even more potent tool of repression. The US would drift toward a more top-down, kleptocratic system in which a small club of tech titans exerts growing influence over public life in pursuit of their private interests. Both systems would become similarly centralised – and dominant – at the expense of citizens. Countries like India and the Gulf states would head the same way, while Europe and Japan would face geopolitical irrelevance (or worse, internal instability) as they fall behind in the race for AI supremacy. Dystopian scenarios such as those outlined here can be avoided, but only if decentralised open-source AI models end up on top. In Taiwan, engineers and activists are crowdsourcing an open-source model built on DeepSeek, hoping to keep advanced AI in civic, rather than corporate or state, hands. The paradox here is that DeepSeek was developed in authoritarian China. Success for these Taiwanese developers could restore some of the decentralisation the early internet once promised. Though it could also lower the barrier for malicious actors to deploy harmful capabilities. For now, however, the momentum lies with closed models centralising power. History offers at least a sliver of hope. Every previous technological revolution – from the printing press and railroads to broadcast media – destabilised politics and compelled the emergence of new norms and institutions that eventually restored balance between openness and stability. The question is whether democracies can adapt once again, and in time, before AI writes them out of the script. © Project Syndicate Ian Bremmer, Founder and President of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media, is a member of the Executive Committee of the UN High-level Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence.

Can democracy survive AI?

I was asked to give a presentation at the <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/the-present-and-future-of-news">Himal Media Mela</a> on 25 July on the ethical and productive use of AI in journalism. I am using the first of this new monthly Technocrat column in Nepali Times to say what I did not have time for at my session about real dangers, real potentials, and hard-won lessons about AI, journalism, and ethics.
I’m not a natural public speaker, and a member of the audience last week told me I sounded like I was chewing gum. True, I mumble, and often lose my train of thought. But one does not need to be a great orator to get the message across. You just need to care deeply and speak the truth.
Nepali Times readers will have seen the supplement in last week’s edition in both print and online that carried a year-by-year summary from 2000 to 2025. I am told the five-member newsroom staff took weeks to put it all together.
They did a great job, but I used ChatGPT’s plus feature Deep Research to crawl 25 years of archives to produce similar content in a few hours with workable links and all the right references.&nbsp;
True, the text needed some fine tuning, but if this sort of normally exhausting human work can save time and energy then AI can be an amazing asset. &nbsp;
But many AI enthusiasts are dumbing down by using image and video generators, and wasting their credits. This is causing AI fatigue among young people on digital networking sites.
Before using AI effectively, we must first understand its true cost. The glossy marketing of AI tools hides the dark side of the deep learning machine underneath, a system built on a foundation of our work, often taken without our knowledge or consent. And you thought, all those words and sentences were AI magic!
AI is a hungry beast voraciously devouring whatever you post. Every article, every photograph, every personal post, every comment you make is raw material for training the next generation of AI models. It does not matter if you gave permission. Nobody is asking.&nbsp;
AI does not need permission to train itself using my sentences from the digital version of this column.
This is not 'fair use'. It is exploitation on an industrial scale. The very soul of our work is being strip-mined to build a technology that profits from our labour without credit, compensation, or consent.
And then there is the danger from deep fake that has moved from a niche experiment to an everyday threat. It is easy if you know the tricks for anyone to clone a voice, fake a video, or create a false event so realistic it can fool even experts.&nbsp;
Content Scrapers
AI is not a neutral force. It is a tool for scammers, a weapon to deny crimes, erase real incidents, and destroy reputations overnight. Teenage girls have been blackmailed with fake videos. In India and Bangladesh, politicians have seen their words twisted to incite chaos.
The scariest outcome is not just the production of individual fakes, it is the erosion of all trust. When ‘anything can be faked’, who can prove if they are telling the truth? The greatest risk is not that people will believe fake content, but that they will stop believing any content, undermining our shared foundation of reality.&nbsp;
As journalists, we risk becoming unwitting amplifiers of these falsehoods if we are not equipped to detect and expose them. AI is a stereotyping machine that amplifies our worst biases.&nbsp;
Prompts on platforms are sexualised, gendered, or reinforce harmful ethnic stereotypes. Many women participate in this cycle, sometimes out of curiosity, unconsciously reproducing the very biases inherent in patriarchal societies.
The faces of children are now circulating in AI-generated images worldwide, stripped of context, consent, or protection. A simple search for ‘Nepali or Indian or White girl’ on an AI image site brings up content no parent would ever want to see.&nbsp;
This is not just a privacy issue, it is a violation of dignity and safety. We make it easy for ‘content scrapers’ by posting photos and videos of our children on Tiktok.&nbsp;
Faced with these realities, we cannot afford to be silent. Indifference is not an option, it is complicity. Fortunately, there is a quiet but growing resistance among artists, musicians, and photographers. But journalists, the very people who create the facts and narratives that train AI, have been too slow to join the fight. &nbsp;
Naresh Newar is a writer on strategic communications and Artificial Intelligence and content specialist.

Being intelligent about journalism

The fourth Himal Media Mela on Friday, 25 July coincided with the 25th anniversary of Nepali Times, and workshops throughout the day focused on how the media can increase its reach and revenue in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. In his <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/journalism-reboot">opening remarks</a>, Nepali Times publisher Kunda Dixit spoke about the accelerated changes in the media sphere, and how legacy media exists in the digital space. “Big Tech has gradually dismantled the structures of content moderation,” said Dixit. “Algorithmic authoritarianism has polarised society, fuelling conflict and intolerance.” “The forces undermining democracy and freedom of expression through disinformation and fake news are the same people who are also vaccine and climate deniers, warmongers who cheer genocide, fan flames of ultra-nationalism and sectarianism,” Dixit continued.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250725050756_cf765c9e446e9a9b325ba8562b57446112e8751b8cf8d546b5d75031a46554f3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20250725050756_cf765c9e446e9a9b325ba8562b57446112e8751b8cf8d546b5d75031a46554f3" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1385" loading="lazy" alt="Himal Media Mela 2025"> <figcaption>Welcome address by Nepali Times publisher Kunda Dixit. All photos: SUMAN NEPALI</figcaption> </figure>  However, even as operators of social media platforms are increasingly controlling how and to what degree the audience is able to connect with news and journalists, digital networks can also be a means of uniting against oppression and promoting public interest journalism. So controlling the internet because it has become violent is not the solution. Rather, Nepal should seek strict guidelines and their compliance, not by punishing journalists using irrelevant laws, as has been the case lately. “When we block platforms — along with the untruth, the truth also disappears,” noted Dixit. In her keynote, <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/news/journalism-will-never-be-out-of-fashion">Manisha Pande</a> of digital portal Newslaundry in India underscored the increased significance of journalism in the age of social media and AI. “In a democracy, journalism and access to clear, credible information is like access to clean water,” said Pande. “It is what allows people to make sensible electoral choices and it makes all the difference between a democracy and an autocracy.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250726160732_57f331e6fe568fa0b114412e69793a182e10f9f1a526ca5325fa0be2ed9f1b01.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20250726160732_57f331e6fe568fa0b114412e69793a182e10f9f1a526ca5325fa0be2ed9f1b01" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="Himal Media Mela 2025 NT"> <figcaption>Keynote speaker Manisha Pande of Newslaundry. </figcaption> </figure>  But the media industry finds itself in a financial crisis today, brought on by social media as well as economic collapse since before the Covid-19 pandemic. Interestingly, Newslaundry which was launched in 2012, is a 100% ad-free: no Google ads, no corporate ads, no political funding, and fully sustained by subscribers, allowing them greater independence. In an age when facts do not matter, journalism needs to be more proactive and go where the audience is. Said Pande: “We need to use the internet and social media tools we have to repackage traditional journalism in a way that is interesting to the audience.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250726160748_2041be8704d2347b2dedac87a4814dfa26b686808889f5b70371bf98d9a9842f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20250726160748_2041be8704d2347b2dedac87a4814dfa26b686808889f5b70371bf98d9a9842f" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="Himal Media Mela 2025"> <figcaption>Networking during the Himal Media Mela 2025.</figcaption> </figure>  Designing a new digital space for journalism Echoing her sentiment was Anup Kaphle of Rest of World as he led the first session, Designing a New Digital Space for Journalism. “You have to meet your audience where they are, which is on their phones and social media,” said Kaphle, also noting that social media can be a “double-edged sword that is excellent for distribution but also vulnerable to misinformation.” Kaphle was previously Chief Editor of The Kathmandu Post, and has held Editorial positions at Buzzfeed, and The Washington Post. His talk focused on how newsrooms can evolve to thrive in the new digital media environment, and the need to accept that fact that how people consume text has fundamentally changed.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250726160744_f332b61bdf6dc7317dd960a2682f91f3aa594347c3aec2b484b5a8654207c74e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20250726160744_f332b61bdf6dc7317dd960a2682f91f3aa594347c3aec2b484b5a8654207c74e" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="HImal Media Nepal 2025"> <figcaption>Himalkhabar editor Santa Gaha Magar with speaker Anup Kaphle of Rest of World. </figcaption> </figure>  The attention economy was a big focus of the talk. Most people are watching short form content on their phones - think TikTok, Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts. “Every journalist should be able to go on camera and summarise their story in 30 seconds,” said Kaphle, also pointing out that building a loyal community of readers comes from consistency, quality, and trust Kaphle also emphasised the need to think about revenue, beyond the obsolete model of relying only on ads, and instead build diverse income streams, such as user generated revenue. He gave examples of the New York Times' metered paywall, where users get a certain number of free articles a month, and then The Guardian, which does not have a paywell but make convincing appeals for voluntary support from readers. There are also others that put most, or all of their content behind a hard paywall. An adjacent model is memberships, where paying members get access to events, behind-the-scenes, newsletters, or early access to content.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250726160744_a0d0029a1584fbd5367b3dc03776c16c54dd97f3a7a8164f8f0e23a1eef2ac1e.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20250726160744_a0d0029a1584fbd5367b3dc03776c16c54dd97f3a7a8164f8f0e23a1eef2ac1e" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="HImal Media Nepal 2025"> </figure>  “More and more newsrooms are opening up to their audience, talking to them about what kind of problems they would like to be solved,” said Kaphle, adding that publications with particularly loyal audiences may also think about merchandising —— think The New Yorker totes. In the meantime, there are a few fundamental things that make a story worth paying attention to. Can stories help readers understand complex information? Do stories add unique value? Are there news needs that are not being met? Are you tracking if, and when, your audience is reading? Do you have a journalistic mission that you are transparent about? TikTok and Journalism Meanwhile, Emad Zafar, head of communication from TikTok South Asia, said that while advertising models have put pressure on journalism, TikTok has emerged as a platform that promotes more democratised content.&nbsp; That has meant that even nations that call themselves democratic have put a blanket ban on the platform, citing concerns of privacy, national security, and safety. Nepal also banned the platform in November 2023, saying the social media platform is spreading social discord, but lifted it last year.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250726160748_a21a30928e26e5f4f63f6f89f4fa7fc47cbbdeb1e94b3b31a57d720ae7ead08a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20250726160748_a21a30928e26e5f4f63f6f89f4fa7fc47cbbdeb1e94b3b31a57d720ae7ead08a" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="HImal Media Nepal 2025"> <figcaption>Karan Parihar of TikTok South Asia.</figcaption> </figure>  Despite being banned in numerous nations, including the most populous country in the world, the numbers that represent the platform are staggering. One in eight people across the world are on TikTok, creating 66,000 videos every minute. One billion people are on the platform every month.&nbsp; These figures make it clear why the platform is so important for journalists to get their content out to a much larger audience, said Karan Parihar of TikTok South Asia.&nbsp; Mamta Siwakoti, TikTok’s Trust and Safety Program Manager, explained the platform’s community guidelines and how journalists can use the platform, even as misinformation has become a major concern for users. TikTok has 21 fact-checking partners, which provide the platform with verified and real time information.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250726160732_407aeb7d1f657b6aac8451795da0353aad8baa9b6839930aa1cc9087395e29ae.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20250726160732_407aeb7d1f657b6aac8451795da0353aad8baa9b6839930aa1cc9087395e29ae" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1367" loading="lazy" alt="Himal Media Mela 2025 NT"> <figcaption>TikTok’s Trust and Safety Program Manager Mamta Siwakoti.</figcaption> </figure>  “Freedom of expression needs to be balanced with human rights,” said Siwakoti. “We consult experts while creating community guidelines, so that it serves our wider purpose of safety and security of our users.” Design and niche content Swarup Nhasiju Shrestha’s Design Sense for Journalists focused on shooting high quality video stories. Nhasiju is the creative head at V-Chitra advertising agency, and has done design and layout for many Nepali newspapers. “Your objective is to stop the scroll - nobody has the time to read anymore,” said Shrestha. He listed out the main types of shots and what they do for the story. A closeup of the face shows the subject’s emotions, a wide shot gives context to what is happening, and an unusual shot can show the subject in a different perspective. Cut every second that doesn’t move the story forward.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250726160736_b44d99be23087ee79eac0bc0fff39a75e000263a4bedc80c44eb32295bf4089a.jpg" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20250726160736_b44d99be23087ee79eac0bc0fff39a75e000263a4bedc80c44eb32295bf4089a" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="Himal Media Mela 2025 NT"> <figcaption>Designer Swarup Nhasiju Shrestha of V-Chitra advertising agency during his session.</figcaption> </figure>  Shrestha also emphasised the importance of audio. “The audience may forgive shaky video, but not bad audio.” As for text on videos, short sentences, in sans serif font, in black and white, is the easiest to read. Thumbnails are the new front page of a newspaper should have faces, action, and high contrast. In the meantime, a main piece of content can be split up into 3-4 minute ‘mini’ pieces that are less than a minute long. These get the most views, and can funnel viewers to the longer videos. And counterintuitively, release trailers after the main video. This way, anyone who sees a trailer and is interested, can go watch the main video right after. Also talking about high-impact video content was Sojan Prajapati of Kathmandu ko katha who started out with an aim to inform the public about culture and heritage.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250726160736_822c94baf230a97d92d3dad3f77c2db47d0d987aedac5ee62c2a4dba47479f91.jpg" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20250726160736_822c94baf230a97d92d3dad3f77c2db47d0d987aedac5ee62c2a4dba47479f91" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="Himal Media Mela 2025 NT"> <figcaption>Sojan Prajapati of Kathmandu ko katha.</figcaption> </figure>  In his session, Niche Content Creation, Prajapati told the audience how he has also used his platform ‘Speak up Nepal’ on Instagram for social issues, went on to push 21 petitions to the House of Representatives, 11 of which are yet to be discussed, while four have been resolved. The main purpose of journalism should lie in reinstating hope and faith in citizens in a world which is constantly consumed by negative rather than positive news, he said. “Virality and vulnerability have a connection. There should be positive reinforcement for something good. You just have to be genuine for content creation, genuineness pays off well.”  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250726160748_8671ccafef079346e3fb3ae3a06129089e38be807be28d4ff63b1caec65dfada.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20250726160748_8671ccafef079346e3fb3ae3a06129089e38be807be28d4ff63b1caec65dfada" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="HImal Media Nepal 2025"> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250726160748_9d0f6bfeda6cfc73ed16aa2cf6308a67d2e58b239ac81c4cda144fa9e0cd6e62.jpg" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="20250726160748_9d0f6bfeda6cfc73ed16aa2cf6308a67d2e58b239ac81c4cda144fa9e0cd6e62" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="HImal Media Nepal 2025"> </figure>  Future of the news In the last session of the day, The Future of News, Sundeep Narwani spoke about how AI and journalism intersect, and that AI can help journalists in copyrighting, social media captions, editing and translation that help reduce the cost of human resources. Generative AI, in turn, is getting more refined as we feed it with more data. Perplexity and Gemini in particular are competing to become real time search engines.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250726160748_74c59cba8159f704dadf6fe8f53532c8cbe1ccb15387da6c0788d7d2abc51085.jpg" data-media-id="editor_13" data-image-id="20250726160748_74c59cba8159f704dadf6fe8f53532c8cbe1ccb15387da6c0788d7d2abc51085" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="HImal Media Nepal 2025"> <figcaption>Sundeep Narwani spoke about AI and the future of journalism.</figcaption> </figure>  “Agents are beyond bots. A lot of things will become automated, making things serious and sensitive, even leading to loss of jobs,” said Narwani while also urging users to be careful of biases. Even search engines such as Google have been found to favour certain subjects while powerful figures have had the platform remove or clean their names. This was in line with a session earlier in the day where Naresh Newar showcased a fake video demonstrating the power of AI, and how it could be misused, urging media institutions to come up with guidelines, to not rely overly on these tools.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250726160736_9270a6f0c5b70d6ce5dccb78bc1d24682b28cf0008ea4aadea689eb3ecececa3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_14" data-image-id="20250726160736_9270a6f0c5b70d6ce5dccb78bc1d24682b28cf0008ea4aadea689eb3ecececa3" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="Himal Media Mela 2025 NT"> <figcaption>Tech writer Naresh Newar.</figcaption> </figure>  Pollster Madhu Acharya of Sharecase Data Initiative had sobering but optimistic insights. Comparing Nepal Media Survey results of the past year, Acharya deduced that tv had the most viewership in Nepal, but 20% of its revenue was coming from YouTube, while radio was the most trusted, even though it is seeing a rapid decline in audience, and those who remain are mostly older men. Newspapers, on the other hand, was still one of the most trusted sources, however, it is the source of news for only a little over 5% people. More surprisingly, it is the younger crowd between 18-24 who are reading newspapers the most. On the other hand, online outlets are the new mainstream with most readers between 35-59. Social media has the largest engagement with YouTube, Facebook and TikTok leading the race. In fact, 11.1 million Nepalis are watching YouTube daily, but these platforms have the lowest level of trust.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20250726160736_c08e5abacdf87f66f21bd4f1ff05567d9dcd63271e34adce04b121dbeafdcc4b.jpg" data-media-id="editor_15" data-image-id="20250726160736_c08e5abacdf87f66f21bd4f1ff05567d9dcd63271e34adce04b121dbeafdcc4b" data-rendition-name="original" width="2048" height="1365" loading="lazy" alt="Himal Media Mela 2025 NT"> <figcaption>Madhu Acharya of Sharecase Data Initiative presenting the latest findings of the Nepal Media Survey.</figcaption> </figure>

The present and future of news

AI is like a tiger, will it eat us up or can we ride it? The Cassandras say that it will make humans obsolete, while the Polyannas say what’s wrong with that if it saves people from mundane work so they can devote time to more creative pursuits. Even if AI solves major problems, might it lead to mass unemployment or exacerbate wealth inequality? Will artificial intelligence help solve the crises that the planet faces, or will it make everything more dangerous? Some of these issues are addressed in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) annual Human Development Report for 2025. Titled A Matter of Choice: People and Possibilities in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, it reasons that rather than assuming AI will run wild and result in either utopian or dystopian outcomes, AI will reflect the values of those shaping it. Some may view this as overly optimistic or naive, especially given the seemingly exponential rate at which AI is gaining capabilities. Yet, there are no major cases, yet, of AI models going rogue, and they do tend to reflect the biases of their training data. UNDP’s choice of the word ‘choice’ in the title of its 2025 report acknowledges the reality that AI is no longer science fiction or under development, but a tangible presence. It is perhaps the most powerful and disruptive technology humanity has created, with consequences rivaling those of electricity, computers, or the internet. Some utopian online communities, such as ‘e/acc’ (effective acceleration), believe AI will solve humanity’s problems and enhance its future. They advocate for rapid advancements with minimal, if any, regulation.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025061606068_1139c7c719c17cf731a6fe99c51afccca36c2500bc3c33f865fef81a4ce33d73.png" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="2025061606068_1139c7c719c17cf731a6fe99c51afccca36c2500bc3c33f865fef81a4ce33d73" data-rendition-name="original" width="1600" height="1118" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal needs to be more intelligent about AI NT"></figure>  The UNDP report addresses these concerns, emphasising that AI should augment human work rather than replace it, that it will not magically solve poverty or climate change, and that it must be accessible to marginalised groups to prevent further exclusion. It also raises concerns that there is only a small group controlling AI development, treating AI as a vital resource and a fundamental right. While Nepal may lack cutting-edge AI talent and hardware, the country’s potential to maximise hydropower generation could supply the vast energy required to train AI models. Teams in India and China might even consider building data centers here. At the policy level, the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology released an ambitious ‘Draft of National AI Policy 2081’ in February 2025 which covers extensive ground, it remains very much a draft -- a wish list rather than a concrete strategy. The only detailed section outlines the composition of a future regulatory body, mentions building ‘international-standard data centers’ and deploying ‘5G and beyond’, despite limited broadband access across the country, and leaves funding details to ‘regular budgets’ and ‘international donors.’ Nepal’s IT sector could be a key player. Global companies have long outsourced coding to Nepal, where skilled, English-speaking programmers work at competitive rates, even by South Asian standards. As AI improves at generating standardised, reusable ‘boilerplate’ code, junior coders may face job losses. However, the ability to quickly produce code could spark a boom in coding jobs, much like the loom initially displaced weavers but ultimately created more jobs and affordable clothing.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025061606068_4e6f7bde438c01a40ca2e9542af0c86c3a9c8879bfc45688a1df0325108c05ef.png" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="2025061606068_4e6f7bde438c01a40ca2e9542af0c86c3a9c8879bfc45688a1df0325108c05ef" data-rendition-name="original" width="1436" height="1534" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal needs to be more intelligent about AI NT"></figure>  The high demand and compensation for software engineers skilled in building AI tools could also encourage Nepal’s sizable IT workforce to pivot in that direction. The UNDP report notes that AI excels at bridging the gap between unskilled and skilled labour for general tasks. With Nepal’s low illiteracy rate, this could be a significant advantage. AI’s potential as a learning tool could also transform the often-criticized Nepali education system. Nepali companies are also taking strides in AI product development, beyond just providing coding services. FuseMachines, for instance, builds AI tools to extract data from documents and detect financial fraud, achieving such success that it went public on NASDAQ in 2024. WiseYak develops healthcare software that uses AI to analyze customer data for insights and diagnoses. Communities like the Nepal Applied Mathematics and Informatics Institute for Research (NAAMII) drive AI innovation through research, hackathons, conferences, workshops, and lectures. Their projects include AI-Assisted Smartphone Microscopy, AI-assisted VIA Screening for Cervical Cancer, and large language models akin to ChatGPT but in Nepali. Students can engage with AI through academic programs. Numerous institutions now offer AI courses at undergraduate and graduate levels. Madan Bhandari University of Science and Technology (UST) in Chitlang, for example, provides a Master’s of Applied Science in Artificial Intelligence and Data Science. In June it announced two PhD spots in Digital Technology (Artificial Intelligence) and will offer AI studies to undergraduates starting in November. The Master’s program is designed as a ‘Master’s by Research,’ with over half of the 50 credit hours dedicated to a thesis project. Given AI’s rapidly evolving nature, there is no fixed syllabus; professors tailor the curriculum. “The university has a set of available projects, and we evaluate a student’s background and capabilities before assigning one,” says Rajiv Subba, Assistant Professor at the UST’s Digital Technology Program.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2025061606068_bdf76f4694999bacd1635f57713d58a75229e58a0b478f6b57537b85c2102fb9.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="2025061606068_bdf76f4694999bacd1635f57713d58a75229e58a0b478f6b57537b85c2102fb9" data-rendition-name="original" width="1308" height="1684" loading="lazy" alt="Nepal needs to be more intelligent about AI NT"></figure>  While most current Master’s students have computer engineering backgrounds, this is not a prerequisite. Rupesh Aryal, a Master’s student in AI says: “One person in my cohort has a background in agriculture, while another studied medicine and is working on AI for digital imaging.” His thesis focuses on a Nepali large language model. Other projects include early forest fire detection, AI for drug discovery, and models to predict human-wildlife conflict. “We accept students from any science background, provided they have undergraduate-level statistics and programming experience,” says Subba. “We also encourage entrepreneurial skills and policy involvement, so our Master’s students take elective courses in these areas.” Subba believes funding research is critical for AI progress in Nepal, as a successful model can have widespread applications. “The government could allocate 50 lakhs in seed money for research to each university,” he suggests. “The biggest obstacles are funding, limited high-quality data for training models, and a shortage of faculty. Qualified candidates are scarce and often reluctant to work in Chitlang or Nepal.” Retaining students for Master’s programs is a first step toward building a local talent pool, with hopes that some will pursue PhDs and become faculty. “We still learn from world-class AI educators, even if they can’t be here physically,” says Aryal. A recent visitor was Professor Gerald Penn from the University of Toronto, an expert in natural language processing. “We have all the GPUs we need to train models, and students receive scholarships and stipends.” “Most of my peers are committed to staying in Nepal and contributing,” Aryal adds, “while some plan to pursue PhDs abroad and return.” Nepal’s best strategy for thriving in the AI era lies in developing talent through well-designed programs like the one at Madan Bhandari University. “The government’s AI policies currently prioritise control and regulation over fostering growth,” says Subba.

Vishad Raj Onta

Nepal needs to be more intelligent about AI

Since returning from this year’s World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, I have been asked repeatedly for my biggest takeaways. Among the most widely discussed issues this year was artificial intelligence – especially generative AI (‘GenAI’). With the recent adoption of large language models (ChatGPT) there is much hope – and hype – about what AI could do for productivity and economic growth in the future.
But our world is dominated far more by human stupidity than by artificial intelligence. The proliferation of <a href="https://www.project-syndicate.org/onpoint/megathreats-remain-despite-moderation-of-pandemic-and-other-shocks-by-nouriel-roubini-2023-11">megathreats</a> – each an element in the broader ‘polycrisis’ – confirms that our politics are too dysfunctional, and our policies too misguided, to address even the most serious and obvious risks to our future.
These include climate change, failed states which will make waves of climate refugees even larger, and recurrent virulent pandemics that could be even more economically damaging than Covid-19.&nbsp;
Making matters worse, dangerous geopolitical rivalries are evolving into new cold wars such as between the United States and China, and into potentially explosive hot wars, like those in Ukraine and the West Asia.&nbsp;
Around the world, rising income and wealth inequality, partly driven by hyper-globalisation and labor-saving technologies, have triggered a backlash against liberal democracy, creating opportunities for populist, autocratic, and violent political movements.
Unsustainable levels of private and public debt threaten to precipitate debt and financial crises, and we may yet see a return of inflation and stagflationary negative aggregate supply shocks. The broader trend globally is toward protectionism, de-globalization, de-coupling, and de-dollarisation.
Moreover, the same brave new AI technologies that could contribute to growth and human welfare also have great destructive potential. They are already being used to push disinformation, deepfakes, and election manipulation into hyperdrive, as well as raising fears about permanent technological unemployment and even starker inequality. The rise of autonomous weapons and AI-augmented cyber-warfare is equally ominous.
Blinded by the dazzle of AI, Davos attendees did not focus on most of these megathreats. This came as no surprise. The WEF zeitgeist is, in my experience, a counter-indicator of where the world is really heading. Policymakers and business leaders are there to flog their books and spew platitudes. They represent the conventional wisdom, which is often based on a rear-window view of global and macroeconomic developments.
There is a very good chance that AI will indeed change the world in the coming decades. But the WEF’s focus on GenAI already seems misplaced, considering that the AI technologies and industries of the future will go far beyond these models. Consider, for example, the ongoing revolution in robotics and automation, which will soon lead to the development of robots with human-like features that can learn and multitask the way we do.
Or consider what AI will do for biotech, medicine, and ultimately human health and lifespans. No less intriguing are the developments in quantum computing, which will eventually merge with AI to produce advanced cryptography and cybersecurity applications.
The same long-term perspective also should be applied to climate debates. It is becoming increasingly likely that the problem will not be resolved with renewable energy – which is growing too slowly to make significant difference – or expensive technologies like carbon capture and sequestration and green hydrogen. Instead, we may see a fusion energy revolution, provided that a commercial reactor can be built in the next 15 years.&nbsp;
This abundant source of cheap, clean energy, combined with inexpensive desalination and agro-tech, would allow us to feed the ten billion people who will be living on the planet by the end of this century.
Similarly, the revolution in financial services will not be centered arounddecentralisedblockchains or cryptocurrencies. Rather, it will feature the kind of AI-enabled centralisedfintech that is already improving payment systems, lending and credit allocation, insurance underwriting, and asset management.&nbsp;
Materials science will lead to a revolution in new components, 3D-printing manufacturing, nanotechnologies, and synthetic biology. Space exploration and exploitation will help us save the planet and find ways to create extra-planetary modes of living.
These and many other technologies could change the world for the better, but only if we can manage their negative side effects, and only if they are used to resolve all the megathreats we face. One hopes that artificial intelligence someday will overcome human stupidity. But it will never get the chance if we destroy ourselves first.
©Project Syndicate
Nouriel Roubini, Professor Emeritus of Economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business, is author of <a href="https://www.littlebrown.com/titles/nouriel-roubini/megathreats/9780316284059/">Megathreats: Ten Dangerous Trends That Imperil Our Future, and How to Survive Them</a> (Little, Brown and Company, &nbsp;2022). <a href="https://nourielroubini.com/">NourielRoubini.com</a>

Artificial Intelligence vs Human Stupidity

The bewildering speed with which generative artificial intelligence developed in just one year dominated the news in 2023. This set off both alarm and excitement: how <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-in-the-decade-of-ai">AI innovation</a> offers solutions to everyday chores, while taking us into dangerous new terrain. Geeks and tech freaks like me watched fascinated as AI applications accelerated in the past year. It was only in March 2023 that I got hooked into AI apps and wrote the front page report in Nepali Times titled Ayo AI. Last week, this paper carried an AI-assisted artwork by digital artist Ashim Shakya (pictured below), showing the enormous possibilities in enhancing existing creative processes.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231223031244_c50108558fee57438989879fe5e8d7f4674979947cd989c8772c6b5cfb248c83.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20231223031244_c50108558fee57438989879fe5e8d7f4674979947cd989c8772c6b5cfb248c83" data-rendition-name="original" width="629" height="916" loading="lazy" alt="NT 1191"> </figure>  When I began to grasp AI knowhow, I never expected to continue using generative AI apps but was hooked into it. From Open <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/chatgpt-news-about-nepal">AI’s ChatGPT</a> 3.5 and two other image generators, I have now tried out over 1,000 apps. Even that is just a drop in the ocean of AI apps available today. &nbsp; In May, when <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/ayo-ai">Ayo AI was featured in this paper</a>, there were about 640 AI apps. There were 10,842 relevant AIs to 9,000 tasks as we went to press on Thursday. It could impact 5,000 job sectors if these AIs are directly embedded into their workflows.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2023123003124_c7a93663335a91461f5e1cee7503dd13c06119e354a29ba282ace94a7837dc60.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="2023123003124_c7a93663335a91461f5e1cee7503dd13c06119e354a29ba282ace94a7837dc60" data-rendition-name="original" width="752" height="1140" loading="lazy" alt="AI in Nepal"> </figure>  So far, there is no evidence of this happening yet. According to the world’s number one AI aggregator, ‘There is an AI for that’ among job holders, 98% of those impacted will be the communications managers and others in this sector. But that is just an opinion, not yet a fact. For content creators, 2023 has been a great year with generative AI app for almost every task. These can be done with just a few text prompts to generate ideas, stories, voiceovers, images, illustrations, websites, infographic designs, animations, music and videos.&nbsp; ChatGPT is no longer the dominant chatbot, but is still one of the best. It was my favourite until I started using Anthropic’s Claude-2 that was released in July. It gives 200,000 tokens, which means that we can upload large documents up to 75,000 words and have it summarised in bullet points simplifying the text. I could use it to synthesise this review, but am doing it the old fashioned way. &nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231230021236_ee9a91549eee9027c52b23401f43642bbdc849cdcb188ab71db889240ce428ae.png" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20231230021236_ee9a91549eee9027c52b23401f43642bbdc849cdcb188ab71db889240ce428ae" data-rendition-name="original" width="2100" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="AI in 2024"> <figcaption>High resolution AI-generated image of a Nepali child walking with baby rhino. The only problem is that AI didn't seem to be able to tell the difference between an Asiatic and African rhino. All prompts: NARESH NEWAR</figcaption> </figure>  <div class="embed-block"><iframe width="700" height="450" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EAbk6H0_Qb4?si=dpyFkgb84WpAopMD" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe></div> The biggest sensation is Gemini AI, considered the most capable AI model developed by Google DeepMind, able to communicate and generate human-like texts. Gemini Pro Vision can interpret any image through its image reasoning task, and has the ability to describe the image and write captions. Its most significant feature is to identify if a photograph or artwork is original or AI-generated. AI-powered image generators have advanced a lot and taken such a huge leap in creating realism in photos and art. Videos have advanced to another level. InVideo, for example, can produce a whole video with just a text prompt: from writing a complete script, a voiceover, and creating visuals selected from its 9 million video stock. A major milestone in generative AI is the Runway, which generates amazing visuals with just a text prompt.&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231230021240_46a18d9e0b1af7a67499b5d39a180688e0d887f91b8c096f7a2fde388b89c68d.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20231230021240_46a18d9e0b1af7a67499b5d39a180688e0d887f91b8c096f7a2fde388b89c68d" data-rendition-name="original" width="1344" height="896" loading="lazy" alt="AI in 2024"> <figcaption>Water colour of rural Nepal, showing how AIs now have perfected hues and textures without the need for colour correction.</figcaption> </figure>  Another new addition that could be Runway’s biggest competitor is Pika, its web-based version is now available but has a long waitlist. (I finally managed to get access after a two week wait.) It blew me away with its features: from text to video, video to video. And users can upscale the video, add duration, have out-painting, in-painting and a canvas feature. AI-generated music is also gaining momentum as part of the audio-generation tools and platforms and being hugely invested by some of the biggest tech companies. Suno AI is considered the best music app so far, and was started by a group of musicians in partnership with AI experts in Cambridge, Massachusetts.&nbsp; <div class="embed-block"><iframe width="700" height="450" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/10p5ckFlnBU?si=2dIOLkpv0duXpVwS" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe></div> In December, it partnered with Microsoft, which has integrated Suno AI in its Copilot as a plugin. Facebook and Google are also partnering with other music companies to create their own AI music audio generation apps. AI is not hype anymore, it is a reality. This is the right time to be in the business. For content creators with technical knowledge and skills for design software like the Adobe products or Affinity, it enriches their work and makes them more productive, cost-effective and enhances inventiveness. Warning: it takes time to master the technique and perfect content.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231230021240_7200af85f6f326a078b5c26c0c7e99c7a21528a263f8f74c987e54cb5fb5d038.png" data-media-id="editor_9" data-image-id="20231230021240_7200af85f6f326a078b5c26c0c7e99c7a21528a263f8f74c987e54cb5fb5d038" data-rendition-name="original" width="1024" height="1024" loading="lazy" alt="AI in 2024"> <figcaption>Snow leopard in the Nepal Himalaya.</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231230021244_401ddc826e5a58ae32e44079ef369bfd3c9f926a103eb6cae627858c5371ee10.png" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20231230021244_401ddc826e5a58ae32e44079ef369bfd3c9f926a103eb6cae627858c5371ee10" data-rendition-name="original" width="2100" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="AI in 2024"> <figcaption>3D image of an animated frog. Now AIs can create super high resolution 3D animated images.</figcaption> </figure>  &nbsp;But AI-generated content is still not as lucrative as people have been led to believe. Customers still prefer original writing and art, photography or videos. YouTube, the biggest platform for creators, encourages original content. &nbsp; YouTube users are often critical of AI-generated content as they do not want to spend time watching fake content created with AI. I tried that once with my own YouTube channel and many wrote angry messages and they felt offended.&nbsp; So far, the only AI content that really sells well on YouTube is news about latest AI updates, videos with clickbait titles about how to generate income using AI, or those showcasing new AI apps, interviews with AI experts, and especially scaremongering news about AI destroying humanity. Instagram has been a popular platform for original and creative content creators and is now crowded with millions of them. However, their AI-generated content do not get as good a response as original posts.&nbsp; There is fear mongering about how AI could destroy the careers of people in the creative fields, but AI generative tools have not ruined professional content creators like the designers, content writers, photographers, videographers and paint artists.&nbsp; It is true that the evolution of the AI generative tools has been speeding up, and we can predict even more advanced generative AI apps. The age of content creation is here and AI apps may be commercially viable and socially acceptable if used ethically and with transparency.&nbsp; For hardworking creative professionals, technology transformation has never been a threat or a challenge to their artistic creations. This argument, or rather assumption, about generative AI being a threat is exaggerated. A lot of creative people have joined the AI revolution, enhancing their original pieces of artistic creations. &nbsp;&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231230021248_354194b90332a9d05ecca9ad294eb4b0030705f3f7c65b105e6e49bceffe9e4c.jpg" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20231230021248_354194b90332a9d05ecca9ad294eb4b0030705f3f7c65b105e6e49bceffe9e4c" data-rendition-name="original" width="1024" height="1024" loading="lazy" alt="AI in 2024"> <figcaption>Urban sketch of imaginary Asan bazar. AIs are now able to generate images relevant to local cultural context. Nepal is now largely in the AI datasets.</figcaption> </figure>   <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20231230021248_dc93e7c3e11ca13971cbc48cedf7248aa1ae2305c875e78abc5355ad7b6a9fd4.png" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="20231230021248_dc93e7c3e11ca13971cbc48cedf7248aa1ae2305c875e78abc5355ad7b6a9fd4" data-rendition-name="original" width="2100" height="1500" loading="lazy" alt="AI in 2024"> <figcaption>Manga art of a young Nepali girl watching iceless mountain witnessing the impact of climate change. AIs have perfected generating digital painting.</figcaption> </figure>  &nbsp;

What to expect from AI in 2024

During his postdoctoral research in London, Bishesh Khanal was trying to build a robot to perform automated ultrasound scans. He remembers thinking Nepal could not afford such expensive robots, how about a simple device for non-experts in remote areas to do ultrasounds?&nbsp; This was not a new idea for Khanal. While pursuing his PhD in a research lab in France, he had tried to find appropriate healthcare solutions for low and middle-income countries.&nbsp; “We saw powerful countries racing to make Covid jabs after the virus threatened them, but other lethal diseases like dengue and malaria that affect poorer countries are neglected,” Khanal says.&nbsp; As an engineering student in Kathmandu, Khanal already knew Nepal was ill-equipped in research and development. Even the Institute of Engineering lacked opportunities for students to foster innovation.&nbsp; Khanal returned to Nepal, and established <a href="https://www.naamii.org.np/">NAAMII</a> (Nepal Applied Mathematics and Informatics Institute for Research) together with a team of co-founders to explore areas where technology, specifically Artificial Intelligence, could help make a difference.&nbsp; Read Also:<a href="https://nepalitimes.com/here-now/artificially-intelligent-medicine"> Artificially intelligent medicine,</a> Yugeshwor Koirala In Europe, Khanal had friends and colleagues who shared his belief in using technologies like AI models to help solve some of Nepal's most basic problems from access to healthcare to governance and cyber-security.&nbsp; “We all agreed that harnessing that potential in research could change things,” Khanal recalls. Nepal’s universities lack opportunities to institutionalise STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) research. Khanal and his team knew that trying to bring change at the university level would lead nowhere. So they settled on a second option: starting a small and focussed centre to catalyse change. NAAMII is a private, not-for-profit research organisation with the mission to build a foundation of scientific research in Nepal in informatics, applied math, and AI.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230928080936_29779924e57b4acd65d845effe08a6504fe608e532a0dbbc384ded96313e9f1f.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20230928080936_29779924e57b4acd65d845effe08a6504fe608e532a0dbbc384ded96313e9f1f" data-rendition-name="original" width="1200" height="764" loading="lazy" alt="NAAMII 2"> <figcaption>NAAMII's Annual Nepal AI School is a dynamic forum that brings together global experts, researchers, and enthusiasts to review AI advancements.</figcaption> </figure>  NAAMII’s research integrates AI, computing and robotics to tackle some of the most pressing challenges in healthcare, agriculture and governance.&nbsp; One ongoing project helps the public get reliable sexual, reproductive and maternal health information through ChatGPT. Another project is developing an AI system that can take x-ray images from different angles to accurately reconstruct 3D bone structures, enabling proper diagnosis and treatment planning. Unlike a CT-scan, this technology can be a more accessible and affordable option in Nepal. Read Also: <a href="https://nepalitimes.com/multimedia/ayo-ai">Ayo AI</a>, Naresh Newar “We dissect every problem to see exactly where technology and AI can fit in, and we put accessibility and affordability front and centre,” explains Khanal.&nbsp; As Nepal jumps on the AI bandwagon, the NAAMII team is also engaged in outreach and educational programs to help young Nepalis build foundational knowledge in AI, mathematics and machine learning.&nbsp; Its Annual Nepal AI School is a dynamic forum that brings together global experts, researchers, and enthusiasts to review AI advancements. Over the past four years, NAAMII has seen more than 500 participants from more than 25 countries come to Nepal to learn from experts. Says Khanal: “Nepal is already a hub for AI learning.”

Nothing artificial about his intelligence

Nepal finds itself at an intersection of two potent forces – a technological revolution sweeping the globe and a dramatic demographic shift. Artificial intelligence (AI) and automation, often seen as the deus ex machina of the 21st century, are making their presence in every part of our lives. This digital metamorphosis comes with its benefits and threats. While they promise to augment economic activities, they simultaneously risk displacing numerous labour-intensive jobs. This concern is acute for a country like Nepal, where remittances from its workers in the Gulf countries, a region rapidly embracing technological shift, account for almost 26% of the nation’s GDP. “Job displacement from labor-intensive industries has been taking place for several decades, as countries move to higher-value-added activities and services,” wrote Mckinsey &amp; Company in The Future of Jobs in the Middle East in 2018, adding that this will accelerate <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/middle-east-and-africa/are-middle-east-workers-ready-for-the-impact-of-automation">between now and 2030 with 45% of existing work in the Middle East potentially being automated.</a>  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230904090952_a93aeeca5e7480559a7ada068cb22ba7247b73088349c2eedead1f35af622d81.png" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20230904090952_a93aeeca5e7480559a7ada068cb22ba7247b73088349c2eedead1f35af622d81" data-rendition-name="original" width="918" height="685" loading="lazy" alt="Tech and transition"></figure>   <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230904090952_1b3468214a3703bdf69e5c332831d25699cd690e170d2ef7b1418fbbe19ca9f6.png" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20230904090952_1b3468214a3703bdf69e5c332831d25699cd690e170d2ef7b1418fbbe19ca9f6" data-rendition-name="original" width="676" height="305" loading="lazy" alt="ILO"><figcaption>Source: Recruitment of migrant workers from Nepal: Country Profile (ILO, 2021)</figcaption></figure>  This should be of special concern for policymakers in labour exporting countries like Nepal given the inherent <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/mckinsey/featured%20insights/middle%20east%20and%20africa/are%20middle%20east%20workers%20ready%20for%20the%20impact%20of%20automation/the-future-of-jobs-in-the-middle-east.pdf">link between displacement potential by automation and low-to-medium levels of education and experience</a>. Workers who have a ‘high-school education or less’ are most vulnerable to the shocks associated with automation. The average automation potential of jobs requiring less than high school, or high school/some experience is more than 50%. Labour migrating from Nepal predominantly characterised by a preponderance of young unskilled labor (more than 54% of total labor migration) are most vulnerable in this displacement.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230904090952_184cb0d4a71b043fa9cbc0cf102e6ceee65e43dd27e42e3d5d3befdce491525f.png" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20230904090952_184cb0d4a71b043fa9cbc0cf102e6ceee65e43dd27e42e3d5d3befdce491525f" data-rendition-name="original" width="918" height="644" loading="lazy" alt="Tech and transition"></figure>   <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230904090952_fdb171a296445b16abb2dd9a04e2dac49a0e8d8723b7564bf232b96a4ad16f36.png" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20230904090952_fdb171a296445b16abb2dd9a04e2dac49a0e8d8723b7564bf232b96a4ad16f36" data-rendition-name="original" width="1106" height="268" loading="lazy" alt="Tech and transition"><figcaption>Source: Recruitment of migrant workers from Nepal: Country Profile (ILO, 2021)</figcaption></figure>  At the same time, Nepal with more than 60% of its population falling in the working age group is undergoing a demographic shift. Drawing upon the 2021 census data, Nepal’s annual population growth rate has decreased to 0.92% with the birth rate having dropped while life expectancy is on the rise. The World Bank data reveals that Nepal’s birth rate dropped from 31 per 1,000 people in 2000 to 20 in 2020, while <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.DYN.LE00.IN?locations=NP">life expectancy</a> has risen from 63 years to 69 years during the same period. The number of people older than 60 has climbed by 2 percent points. By 2040, the <a href="https://databank.worldbank.org/source/population-estimates-and-projections">population estimates and projections from the World Bank</a> shows that the proportion of elderly population in Nepal will have increased by more than one third. These demographic forces are poised to cause a significant increase in the dependency ratio (dependent people as percent of the working age population), a challenge for an economy primarily dependent on labour remittance.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230904100944_d1d3d49bf18f40fb0ec96b81bcb77ff1cbf2641896397b71868cae07fc78d131.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20230904100944_d1d3d49bf18f40fb0ec96b81bcb77ff1cbf2641896397b71868cae07fc78d131" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="700" loading="lazy" alt="demographic transition"><figcaption>Source: Nepal Population and Housing Census (NSO- NPHC, 2021)</figcaption></figure>  Nevertheless, technological revolution has not only reshaped global superpowers but has also provided emerging economies with opportunities to leapfrog traditional developmental transition. Digital technology’s creative destruction could spawn new sectors of employment, that could help to harness the benefit of demographic dividend and improve the quality of life in the longer run. <a href="https://www.iids.org.np/images/publications/53e4e8a0c60bb963dfdabce67ec5fdcf.pdf">A study by the Institute of Integrated Development Studies</a> offers insightful data that underscores the significance. By 2022, Nepali IT companies had made a substantial investment of $41.26 million across the country. This investment reflects the growing confidence of stakeholders in the potential of the IT sectors. More impressively, these investments translated into staggering revenue of $515 million, showcasing the sector’s profitability, and its capacity to contribute to the national economy. As technology has made more services tradable, Nepal has the opportunity to transition from labour exports to service exports. This not only retains talent within the country but also creates job opportunities for the youth, addressing the brain drain issue. However, the trajectory isn’t as straightforward. Digital inclusion gaps, a limited capacity for innovative digital tech use, myopic labour laws, lack of data security laws, shortage of skills and IT infrastructural challenges pose substantial barriers for inclusive growth. Moreover, Nepal has grappled with governance failure and political instability that have hampered past policy implementation efforts, pointing towards a more critical systemic challenge. On one hand, IT companies seek workforce proficiency in essential areas such as UI/UX, SQL, full stack web development, python, DevOps, and automation testing.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230904090956_bf93b210720350521983eeebac9d8f82458aaf26608105bd57fb32991929002e.png" data-media-id="editor_10" data-image-id="20230904090956_bf93b210720350521983eeebac9d8f82458aaf26608105bd57fb32991929002e" data-rendition-name="original" width="655" height="455" loading="lazy" alt="Tech and transition"><figcaption>Source: Unleashing IT: Advancing Nepal’s Digital Economy (IIDS, 2023) </figcaption></figure>  While on the other hand, demographic profile of Nepal shows that there are less than 2% youths in the age group 15-39 years with 10+2 or equivalent who have computing and technology as major field of study. The figure is much higher for those enrolled in management at more than 35%.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230904090956_58e440ecb976281a220e2d16c26ff12c4679418957ca77c33250fbcd26792299.png" data-media-id="editor_11" data-image-id="20230904090956_58e440ecb976281a220e2d16c26ff12c4679418957ca77c33250fbcd26792299" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="800" loading="lazy" alt="Tech and transition"><figcaption>Source: Nepal Population and Housing Census (NSO- NPHC, 2021) </figcaption></figure>  Viewed through a gender lens, females within this age group exhibit a strong inclination towards Education and Health/Medical Sciences. Their representation in the field of Computing and Information Technology remains strikingly low, accounting for less than 1% of the cohort.  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/2023090410090_8697f24662b6a53800810f764bb8d834b5198772b28cf29845ef23ec65bf15be.png" data-media-id="editor_12" data-image-id="2023090410090_8697f24662b6a53800810f764bb8d834b5198772b28cf29845ef23ec65bf15be" data-rendition-name="original" width="1900" height="800" loading="lazy" alt="Tech and transition"><figcaption>Source: Nepal Population and Housing Census (NSO- NPHC, 2021) </figcaption></figure>  While established <a href="https://b360nepal.com/public/putting-his-stamp-on-the-world-kiran-bhakta-joshi">digital enterprises and burgeoning startups are navigating through the talent pool</a>, they frequently encounter a significant void: a dearth of individuals possessing the requisite skills to be deemed employable. This scarcity is particularly pronounced among women, whose specific skill gaps act as a formidable barrier, constraining their full participation in the digital workforce and entrepreneurial ventures. Madhes Province, for instance, with a youthful demographic paradoxically grapples with staggering low female literacy rate (54.7%).  <figure><img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20230904100932_7b52c96ac5b03f15a358ec65d94d9485e78aba51c3f2ac8915041e98fd337779.png" data-media-id="editor_14" data-image-id="20230904100932_7b52c96ac5b03f15a358ec65d94d9485e78aba51c3f2ac8915041e98fd337779" data-rendition-name="original" width="1512" height="634" loading="lazy" alt="Tech and transition"><figcaption>Source: Nepal Population and Housing Census (NSO- NPHC, 2021)</figcaption></figure>  It is crucial to consider the <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w28551">unequal effects of service-led growth</a>, a phenomenon that has been observed in other developing countries like India. In Nepal, this could exacerbate existing urban-rural divides, as the evolution of informational technology may not absorb the unskilled labour from rural area that currently seeks employment abroad, particularly in the Gulf countries. It is imperative for Nepal to craft policies that are sensitive to these unequal effects. This could include investing in education and training programs that are aligned with the needs of the IT sector, bridging rural development initiatives that complement holistic service led growth, and implementing training programs that help females and individuals from underrepresented groups in the burgeoning IT sector. As the tides of time advance, we find countries steadily pivoting towards realms of higher intellectual yield—towards activities and services that demand less from the body and more from the mind. Nepal with its youthful demographic could, to some extent, harness the power of technology to spur economic growth. However, this same demographic group, given their current education levels, might not effectively complement in the aspired trajectory. Moreover, they are potentially the most vulnerable to unemployment due to automation, especially with over 54% of total labour migration being unskilled. The government faces a herculean task in turning technology into a viable solution for employment and inclusive growth. Development stakeholders in the young republic must guide this transformation with astute policymaking and strategies as we witness Nepal's demographic shift in the age of automation.” Ashutosh M. Dixit is an economist and an Australia Award Scholar with over 15 years of experience. He has worked with the National Planning Commission in Nepal and global institutions including the World Bank, UNICEF, UN-ESCAP, OECD, UNDP, and Standard Chartered.

Tech and transition in Nepal

<figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151128/636a67909c7e80680e0599e4jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1500" height="1000"/><figcaption>Photo : MONIKA DEUPALA</figcaption></figure>Much more than today, in the next decade smartphones will become the primary means of accessing the internet in Nepal, making social media an even greater influence in society. At the same time, financial technology, AI and e-commerce will transform the economy.Already, <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/how-nepals-media-landscape-is-being-transformed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">96% of households in Nepal have at least one mobile phone</a> and <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepalis-are-drifting-to-digital-media/">more than half of those were smartphones</a>. A survey this year showed that nearly everyone here who accesses the internet does it through a smartphone — and almost everyone who is logged on also has a<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/facebook-nation/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Facebook account</a>.Read also:<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/so-you-want-to-quit-facebook/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">So, you want to quit Facebook?</a>, Reeti KC<a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/editorial/face-to-face-with-facebook/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Face-to-face with Facebook</a>, Editorial“Once you are introduced to the smartphone and the features that come along with, it is very difficult to go back, and this trend is growing exponentially,” says Madhu Acharya of Sharecast Initiative, which conducts the annual social media survey. He forecast that the digital divide between urban and rural is going to narrow in the coming decade.“More older people will be accessing the Net through smartphones, which will get cheaper,” adds Acharya. He gives the example of his father, who used to own a feature phone but switched to a smartphone to communicate with grandchildren and relatives abroad through Facebook.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/nepal-is-becoming-a-nation-of-net-addicts/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nepal is becoming a nation of net addicts</a>, Sabina DevkotaThe trend of using the internet to access media sites is going to grow in coming years, as digital portals replace television to become the key source of national and international news for Nepalis. People will get more and more used to watching content whenever and wherever they like rather than wait for the 7 o’clock news bulletin.In terms of online finances, Sumana Shrestha of Fusemachines says that the latest algorithms will provide a larger section of the population access to financial technology in the coming decade. AI has been making progress in Nepal, and possibly the biggest change will come when the technology that digitises handwritten application forms, through Nepal’s AI Office of Civilian Requirements, will be smart enough to produce an editable document both in English and Nepali.Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/bringing-silicon-valley-to-kathmandu-valley/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bringing Silicon Valley to Kathmandu Valley</a>, Sonia AwaleNepal has a wealth of software talent in information technology, and this need to be converted to work with AI, Shrestha says. Fusemachines and other AI-centred companies are already collaborating with local engineering colleges to build a critical mass of AI expertise in Nepal.Kai-Fu Lee, the former president of Google China and an AI expert, wrote the book <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/review/the-ai-super-powers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">AI Superpowers: China, Silicon Valley, and the New World Order</a>. He predicts that in the coming decade a country will forge ahead if it has ‘an army of well-trained engineers and entrepreneurs, AI scientists ... with abundant data and a supportive policy environment’.‘China is able to apply skilled AI in various areas, like healthcare, finance, safety systems and systems for smart houses,’ Lee writes, adding, ‘poor countries will stagnate while the AI superpowers take off.’Read also: <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/here-now/can-nepal-invest-in-the-cloud/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Can Nepal invest in the cloud?</a>, Ganesh AcharyaShrestha thinks Nepal has not done enough in AI adoption compared with other countries. “Nepal has a very young population, which means we can incorporate AI in the curriculum to reach a huge segment of the population, and we are hoping to be able to develop talents within a year or two on a mass scale. There is a tremendous opportunity for Nepal to lead and make a huge impact,” says Shrestha, who sees immediate applications of AI in the tourism industry.“Nepal can zero in on the right kind of tourist and make sure our ads and messaging is getting to them. That will increase the volume of tourists coming to Nepal and will make sure tourists have a good quality of experience,” she adds.Nepal will also have to catch up with its immediate neighbours in opening payment gateways on the Internet and promoting e-commerce. For example, China has already moved beyond phone-based payment with AI-based face recognition systems on Alipay, in which people pay their bills by scanning their faces at a checkout point without having to use their mobiles.Although online payment gateways such as eSewa and IMEPay have been established here, Nepal is still miles away from having a mature <a href="https://www.nepalitimes.com/banner/nepals-budding-e-commerce-ecosystem/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">e-commerce system</a>. The government’s 2019 Digital Nepal Framework admits: ‘The growth of e-commerce in Nepal is inhibited due to the lack of a supporting ecosystem such as limited digital payment options.’While others have already taken a leap in device-free commerce, if Nepal can at least make internet payment through mobile phones secure and convenient during the coming decade, that will already be an achievement.<h2>What do you think will be the most popular IT advancement in the next 10 years in Nepal?</h2><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151128/636a67949c7e80680e0599e5jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1050" height="846"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><figure><img src="https://superdesk-pro-c.s3.amazonaws.com/sd-nepalitimes/20221108151128/636a67979c7e80680e0599e6jpeg.jpg" alt="" width="1050" height="846"><figcaption> </figcaption></figure><h2>The media is the medium</h2>Despite the migration of eyeballs to digital portals for news, Madhu Acharya says it is too early to declare print media dead. “People still prefer to read news holding a physical paper and there is an archival value that digital doesn’t always have,” he says.A Reuters report found that worldwide, across 38 markets, increasing concern about misinformation is undermining trust in media. Yet in Nepal, Sharecast found trust of traditional media is still high with less concern about disinformation online, especially <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/04/india-misinformation-election-fake-news/586123/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">in comparison to India</a>. Nepalis believe they know what is and isn’t ‘fake news’, but often without verifying links and checking sources.This could hold implications for Nepali politics in the coming decade, especially in federal elections scheduled for 2022 and 2027.“The ideas that float around on social media and digital platforms are extreme,” Acharya tells us. “If politicians decide to listen to these extreme opinions and stop meeting people face-to-face, learning about them and what problems they have, then I think they will be tempted to address fake needs.”

Nepal in the decade of AI

Who is accountable for teacher-student relationships?

On Saturday, Iran retaliated with missile strikes on Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Bahrain and Qatar, a region where there are an estimated 2 million Nepalis working to send money home. In addition, thousands of Nepalis were preparing to board flights to Kathmandu from West Asian cities this weekend to vote in the 5 March election. Many are said to be stranded at various aviation hubs. A Qatar Airways flight from Doha took off just before the air space was closed, while Air Arabia and Kuwait Airways have diverted or cancelled flights. Nepalis in the West Asian region said things were relatively calm where they were, although some heard loud explosions at about noon local time. In Dubai, some thought they were Ramadan fireworks.&nbsp; In Kuwait, nearly 2,000 Nepalis working in the US military base as security guards and cleaners were evacuated before the strikes. In Bahrain where the US Fifth Fleet naval base is located and which was hit by two Iranian missiles, workers contacted by Nepali Times said the situation was under control and the authorities had told everyone to stay indoors and not use highways. The conflict also coincided with the beginning of Nepal’s trekking and mountaineering season, and tourists were either on their way or planning to leave European and North American cities for Himalayan hikes. Most of them transit through Doha, Dubai or Kuwait and all three airports are closed. Turkish Airlines flights via Istanbul are still operating.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260228130212_ab5e132d56da1df6a3fb1b6919648f845a168ad2c51d79f7587fb85a6e913b97.png" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20260228130212_ab5e132d56da1df6a3fb1b6919648f845a168ad2c51d79f7587fb85a6e913b97" data-rendition-name="original" width="1864" height="826" loading="lazy" alt="Qatar and UAE airspace closed"> <figcaption>Qatar and UAE airspace closed. Credit: Flightradar24</figcaption> </figure>  However, the main impact for the world could be a spike in the price of petroleum products if the strategic Strait of Hormuz is blocked. China relies on Iranian oil for their refineries, and Nepal could be affected indirectly if the economies of its neighbours are hit. Nepal imports all its diesel, petrol, LPG and aviation fuel from India which sources it mainly from the Gulf, and until recently from Russia. Petroleum makes up 25% of the value of all imports, and that is more than Nepal earns from all its exports. Saudi Arabia this year overtook the UAE as the main destination for Nepali workers, with the number now totalling 400,000. There are said to be as many in the UAE, and another 350,000 in Qatar. There are another 100,000 mostly women in Kuwait, and 50,000 each in Oman and Bahrain.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260228130220_d24ae633ff84f283835434becdb2f1351f84c415ce87ca34378bd4e2669661b3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260228130220_d24ae633ff84f283835434becdb2f1351f84c415ce87ca34378bd4e2669661b3" data-rendition-name="original" width="1500" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="West Asia Iran conflict"> <figcaption>Iran retaliated with missile strikes on Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Bahrain and Qatar on Saturday.</figcaption> </figure>  Nepal receives nearly $11 billion a year in remittances from overseas Nepalis (not counting India) through official channels, although the total is said to be much more. &nbsp;This makes up more than a quarter of Nepal’s GDP equivalent — one of the highest proportions in the world. More than half of the overseas remittances to Nepal comes from its workers in the Gulf, and it is the mainstay of the country’s economy. Nepalis in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE alone send home more than $3 billion a year, much of that helping support their families back home. An average Nepali worker in the Gulf sends home nearly $2,500 a year, and this is spent mainly for household supplies, children’s education and healthcare. There are also an estimated 7,000 Nepali caregivers and healthcare workers in Israel, and most of them are women. The Nepal Embassy has asked Nepalis in Israel to take caution and move to bomb shelters.

West Asia war and Nepalis

Of the nearly 19 million eligible voters in next week’s election in Nepal, an estimated 5 million are abroad and cannot cast their ballots. Many others within Nepal must travel to their home districts, and might decide not to because of the cost.
Flights into Kathmandu these days are full of global Nepalis returning just to vote, but almost as many are leaving for overseas jobs. Most of those coming or going are in the 20-40 age group, and a majority want Nepal to see a change in leadership.
Bangladesh held an election this month in which citizens overseas could vote by mail.&nbsp;
“Bangladesh made maximum use of technology not just for campaigning but also for polling itself. We could have also managed this, so people within Nepal did not have to travel to their home districts to vote,” says Mohna Ansari, former head of Nepal’s National Human Rights Commission who was an election observer in Bangladesh.
A 3-day holiday has been declared so people can travel to their home constituencies to cast ballots. Even if there was not enough time to manage ballots for overseas Nepalis, it could have been done for Nepalis within Nepal.
Former Chief Election Commissioner Bhojraj Pokharel reckons that physical voting in countries with a large Nepali diaspora would have been a logistical nightmare, but in the PR system, using electronic voting machines or paper ballot could have been piloted in some places. It is not possible to manage the entire voting process until we introduce the internet voting system.
“First of all, there needs to be political will to bring the policy and be ready to undertake that level of investment and it is not a one-time cost,” Pokharel says. “A government formed by the GenZ could have atr least issed an ordinance ensuring this right, piloted out-of-country voting where possible, which could have built pressure for the future Parliament and the government. It would have given people hope. It is a lost opportunity.”
All major political parties called for voting rights for global Nepalis in their manifestos, but these very leaders blocked legislation allowing it despite a 2017 Supreme Court ruling out of fear that it would be anti-incumbent.&nbsp;
<h2>Why so late?</h2>
Bangladesh delivered election results in just one day, but the final results of Nepal's last local polls in 2022 including that of Kathmandu constituencies took nearly a month.
Acting Chief Election Commissioner Ram Prasad Bhandari said this week that the results of the First-Past-The-Post (FPTP) ballot counting would “likely” be published within 24 hours of the poll closing at 5PM on 5 March. But many are skeptical.
“I wonder if we lack the capacity or know-how to announce results as quickly as possible,” says Mohna Ansari.
Former Chief Election Commissioner Pokharel says manual ballot paper counting in Nepal is inherently slow because of the large numner of political parties and/or candidates on the ballot, the counting mechanism, the political behaviour of the candidates/parties and some managerial issues during counting.
“Our present policy is to count all the ballot papers at the returning officers' officies, located at the district headquarters. It requires collecting ballot boxes safetly first. This takes time, and there have been cases of ballot boxes being damaged or stolen during transport. In a few highly difficult, geographically remote polling centres, we use a helicopter or transport. But sometimes, accommodating the party and candidates' representatives remains challenging,” explains Pokharel. A solution could be counting ballots at the very booths where they are cast.
Another reason for the delay is simply the number of political parties, and the need for each ballot paper to be examined by booth representatives for consensus. In close races, the smallest difference can lead to tense situations, further delaying results, even though counting centres are protected by metal fencing so there is no disruption.
After this, then it is the turn of Proportional Representation (PR) ballots to be counted. Weeks pass by the time the results of candidates and parties are tallied and verified. But the most common delay is because election officers think ballot counting is a nine-to-five job.&nbsp;
“The efficiency of poll station officers is most important, and they are incentivised for this,” says Ansari, adding that counting can even start within an hour after voting closes.
In remote areas, local resources could be mobilised to make counting quicker, but there is a crisis of trust, adds Ansari.&nbsp;
That could be easily solved with electronic voting which the EC implemented in the 2008 polls but discontinued because political parties felt the machines could be hacked or manipulated.

Nepalis Select Who To Elect

This is the 86th episode of Diaspora Diaries, a Nepali Times series in collaboration with Migration Lab providing a platform to share experiences of living, working and studying abroad. <h2>Thinking about the country</h2> Pappu Mahara, Malaysia  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260223120244_b8bbe881acfbe3eda31f8127bfad743cb672f8777ee145be68b60176bfffda45.jpg" data-media-id="editor_0" data-image-id="20260223120244_b8bbe881acfbe3eda31f8127bfad743cb672f8777ee145be68b60176bfffda45" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="2278" loading="lazy" alt="Homecoming at election time NT"> </figure>  I came to Nepal on vacation and managed to time it around election. In Malaysia where I have been working for over two years, it is all about elections. In our rooms. Online. In fact, the discussions around elections felt more heated in Malaysia than back home in the village here in Mahottari.&nbsp; Even when you find out someone is going to Nepal, Nepalis who are unable to come home ask who we are voting for and remind us to tell everyone to vote for Balen. I gave my colleagues a thumbs up and assured them: only Balen. &nbsp;That is the message we come home with. And that is the reason I pasted Balen even in my suitcase as I came home. I wanted to show the world that those of us who are working hard overseas support him.&nbsp; In the past, my family voted for another party but they failed us. Even to get jobs we qualify for we need connections. Where are the jobs? The factories? Development?&nbsp;  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260223120244_5fd78fb1c7aae55b75f687d7e34d362854dc0b7167ee0755766401650fa05fb2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_1" data-image-id="20260223120244_5fd78fb1c7aae55b75f687d7e34d362854dc0b7167ee0755766401650fa05fb2" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1002" loading="lazy" alt="Homecoming at election time NT"> </figure>  Unemployment is high. Costs are rising. It is not just jobs in Nepal, even to get access to good overseas jobs, we need connections now. And money. There is corruption everywhere.&nbsp; Our expectation from the new government is to think beyond only their close networks and personal gain, to think about the country. What is the point of repeating mistakes from the past if those who are going to benefit are the sisters, nieces and nephews of those in power? It is good that some of us got to come home, even one vote can make a difference.&nbsp; Each ballot can create a mountain, that is why we have come home to vote.&nbsp; <h2>Coming home to support my son</h2> Rishiram Khanal कोही छन् विदेशमा, कोही यता शहरमा, जीवन उकास्न भोग्दै कहरै कहरमा। शून्य भयो गाउँघर, मान्छे लाखापाखा हुँदा, जुनकीरीको पिल्पिल् हरायो सुनसान डहरमा। Some are abroad, some here in the city,Enduring hardship just to lift life.Villages empty as people scatter far and wide,Fireflies don't flicker anymore over barren paths. I came home to Nawalpur from Bahrain to support my son, Manish Khanal, who is running in the election as an RSP candidate. I migrated to Bahrain 15 years ago where I work as a security guard. It was for my children’s education and future. That is the story of the majority of us, a compulsion.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260223120244_6e0cce852d3b0b1c2d3004952569386674fa5d08cbaa9d77effd1af6ad735dee.jpg" data-media-id="editor_2" data-image-id="20260223120244_6e0cce852d3b0b1c2d3004952569386674fa5d08cbaa9d77effd1af6ad735dee" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1778" loading="lazy" alt="Homecoming at election time NT"> </figure>  It would have been better if we did not have to leave our families behind. But we migrate to secure a future for our children. Mine have done well for themselves, they are educated and disciplined. This motivated me to stay on overseas. And now my son’s achievement has further motivated me. From childhood, Manish was a hard-working student who did well throughout his school. He got into politics through Bibeksheel and has now made his way to RSP where he is contesting from Nawalpur. Everyone has their reason for joining politics. My son was drawn to it because the country was deteriorating and corruption is rife. Many youth are leaving. The Gen-Z revolution in which many young lives were lost made him even more committed to run for office. I come home every two years on vacation, but this time it was special when I arrived three days ago. I was overjoyed. Even on the plane, people recognised my son on videos. He is from an ordinary Nepali family, but is getting noticed globally. &nbsp;I had never imagined this reality is possible, such a life-changing opportunity has opened up for him at such a young age. He is the second youngest candidate running for office.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260223120244_b5a8fbc1a268445798a573e6f9e837a1ed620d494a2c06492a4a14d790a7a319.jpg" data-media-id="editor_3" data-image-id="20260223120244_b5a8fbc1a268445798a573e6f9e837a1ed620d494a2c06492a4a14d790a7a319" data-rendition-name="original" width="1000" height="1333" loading="lazy" alt="Homecoming at election time NT"> <figcaption>Rishiram Khanal (left) with his son Manish Khanal.</figcaption> </figure>  I want to see him run the country. I want him to ensure that the youth can get decent jobs in Nepal itself. I am encouraged by the feedback I have received from fellow workers in Bahrain. They support me and congratulate me for raising a son with such integrity. Here in Nawalpur, the environment is positive and I am also helping campaign for my son. The support for the RSP abroad is high. People are calling up family members back home to tell them to vote for घन्टी. We have long duty hours so don’t travel around much but from what I saw, there is a lot of support for the party. No matter who is running from whichever party, I hope that the priority will be Nepal’s prosperity, they should focus on building the nation. Nepalis should not have to leave in such large numbers.&nbsp; As for my son, I wish him the very best and hope he goes far. I want him win and become Nepal's son, not just mine. I want the world to know of him as an honest, selfless Nepali who will fulfil his duties for the nation earnestly.&nbsp; <h2>If not now, then when?</h2> Narendra baral, Oman  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260223120244_f8d421d93e8668b794e606198ee5b29d8e6b1af1640c91577b6f984c93d088f3.jpg" data-media-id="editor_4" data-image-id="20260223120244_f8d421d93e8668b794e606198ee5b29d8e6b1af1640c91577b6f984c93d088f3" data-rendition-name="original" width="606" height="689" loading="lazy" alt="Homecoming at election time NT"> </figure>  Just like elections have taken over Nepal, those of us abroad are equally excited and engaged. After the GenZ movement in particular, we Nepalis abroad have become even more involved. Friends are also keen to return to Nepal to vote. The mentality that no matter who wins it won’t matter and nothing will change has now been replaced by: if not now, when? There is a growing consensus that youth need to lead the nation. In that regard, the leadership change in the Nepali Congress (NC) has encouraged overseas Nepalis because we view Gagan Thapa, with his experience and sacrifices, as the right person to lead the nation. What he did recently to change the face of the NC has rejuvenated hope. For far too long, the musical chairs among the same old people had led to a sense of disgust with the state of the politics.&nbsp; Now, with new parties and new leadership in old parties, we feel emboldened to talk and engage positively and with hope. He has already won people’s confidence by allowing new faces to contest the elections, and even those who had started feeling skeptical or discouraged with Congress are now strongly supporting the party. I first migrated to Dubai in 2006 and returned five years later to start a poultry farm and fresh house in Nepal, but it did not go very far, so I decided to remigrate to Oman in 2016. It is a pity that overseas Nepalis could not vote in this election either. We saw Bangladeshis mail their votes just recently, while Filipino colleagues do so online.&nbsp; We even submitted a petition to the embassy on this issue, and the ambassador was positive given that there are just 25,000 Nepalis in Oman. Let’s hope the next election will be different. I am glad that this issue has been addressed in recent manifestos shared by the parties. Other than allowing diaspora voting, the government should also create a platform for those of us abroad so we can channel our investment and skills back home. We are investing in Oman and would like to do the same back home and create jobs for youth. Those of us who can manage are coming to Nepal to vote. Some of us have timed our vacations that way. Others have taken a week’s leave. <h2>Every vote counts&nbsp;</h2> Prajwal Poudel, Saudi Arabia  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260224130228_0b2e9f6cbfc40a4fbd90ee93ede9bfe66dfb7011785376e6d290ce12578f69a6.jpg" data-media-id="editor_5" data-image-id="20260224130228_0b2e9f6cbfc40a4fbd90ee93ede9bfe66dfb7011785376e6d290ce12578f69a6" data-rendition-name="original" width="1170" height="878" loading="lazy" alt="Homecoming at election time NT"> </figure>  I was not sure if I would come to Nepal from Saudi Arabia for this election. But as election came close I really wanted to come home, I thought every vote matters. It is a basic right of every Nepali citizen and this is the right time now in Nepal where things are building up for change.&nbsp; All five of us roommates are returning. We all came together to Saudi Arabia to work and are going back together to vote for RSP. Our contract was about to end a couple of weeks after the elections so my roommates decided to forfeit a few weeks of salary to come home to vote. My situation was a bit different because I had made up my mind to stay on. I can always migrate overseas, if I have to go again, I can arrange it but the GenZ movement is a once in a lifetime event and this positive environment for change might not come again. I have resigned from my job with the slogan: each vote counts. I also am hopeful that the same employer will bring me back if needed as I have built a good rapport with them and worked hard throughout my contract. I am supporting Ghanti this time but if they do not deliver I will again choose another party next time.&nbsp; For me it is about choosing the right leaders. Some of my colleagues are telling me I should not have made this decision to return. My father was telling me to remain overseas so I have not told him properly that I am coming home with no return plans. My mother knows the reality and seems excited and she brought my citizenship card to Jhapa.&nbsp; If things don’t pan out as I have planned and the same old faces win, I will again migrate. Perhaps that is why I am coming home to avoid that possibility. The stakes are high this time. <h2>I am coming home to vote</h2> Bimal Subedi, Qatar  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260223120244_8c0597047c2aa87a1dc8d3c062f46071107c16a3d8331df12627db9b14ce2756.jpg" data-media-id="editor_6" data-image-id="20260223120244_8c0597047c2aa87a1dc8d3c062f46071107c16a3d8331df12627db9b14ce2756" data-rendition-name="original" width="924" height="2000" loading="lazy" alt="Homecoming at election time NT"> </figure>  The political ups and downs in Nepal brought me to Qatar 21 years ago, but even from the diaspora, I have continued my engagement with the NC in various capacities. The democratic change of 1990, led by the NC opened Nepal to the world. &nbsp; From a country that did not even allow ordinary people to have passports, the government took steps to provide unemployed youth access to overseas jobs and the international market. This outmigration intensified after the Maoist conflict, and now there is a significant population overseas. Foreign employment has helped us send money back home, which has improved our living standards and helped us come out of poverty. Foreign employment can be beneficial if we make good use of it to maximise our skills and capabilities. I have been able to establish myself as a senior accountant in an international travel company and have also improved my family’s living standards. In the past two decades, I have come home 70 times, in fact, it is easier for me to travel to Kathmandu from Qatar than for someone from Dolpo.  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260223120244_1f89301a33ee6ed0858d7047aeb7ad4c73289c7be58a451c6d1c98d6930d2bc2.jpg" data-media-id="editor_7" data-image-id="20260223120244_1f89301a33ee6ed0858d7047aeb7ad4c73289c7be58a451c6d1c98d6930d2bc2" data-rendition-name="original" width="924" height="2000" loading="lazy" alt="Homecoming at election time NT"> </figure>  The recent GenZ movement was a fight for equal access to education and basic services. Someone in Dolpo should have access to the same opportunities as someone in Kathmandu. But inequality transcends borders. Someone working in the same five star hotel overseas versus in Nepal sees a large salary difference. Only the one abroad can make meaningful savings. How do we create a labour market in Nepal that provides quality jobs so people can afford a decent living? The narrative being painted, especially on social media, that only the new is good is misleading. We have long advocated for change that touches the grassroots level and provides equal access to opportunities and services. The latest changes within NC leadership and the manifesto have made it evident that reform is coming, and we are coming home to show our support. Some are returning just to vote, while others have arranged their vacations during election time. This time I am coming home with the hope that the new government will ensure everyone has equal access to healthcare and education. That Nepali diaspora overseas will be provided a platform to invest in Nepal and help create world class jobs.&nbsp; I am coming to vote for a Nepal that we can all be proud of. <h2>Possibility of real change&nbsp;</h2> Sachin Thakur, Malaysia  <figure> <img src="https://publisher-publish.s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/pb-nepalitimes/swp/asv65r/media/20260223120248_40a23a8aa46cc22999de1bfafe6e77a30c88253ea280473c7213d40d35d3acd5.jpg" data-media-id="editor_8" data-image-id="20260223120248_40a23a8aa46cc22999de1bfafe6e77a30c88253ea280473c7213d40d35d3acd5" data-rendition-name="original" width="1778" height="1000" loading="lazy" alt="Homecoming at election time NT"> </figure>  I am coming home for the first time after working 40 months in Malaysia. I came to vote for Balen. I went overseas looking for jobs, just like my father who had spent five years in Qatar as a construction worker and who returned prematurely from the UAE after a failed migration experience.&nbsp; Malaysia is filled with Balen supporters. We have a company canteen where ten of us met constantly to discuss politics. We talked about corruption and the need for better jobs back home. The non-RSP supporters are in the minority at our workplace and perhaps across Malaysia. I came home to vote. I was lucky to be able to time my vacation that way. I look forward to spending time with family but also have plans to get together with the boys to campaign for RSP.&nbsp; For those of us who are overseas, the expectation is that the government will negotiate better terms of employment including higher pay. And that we can eventually come home. I want to resume my business making gold jewelery.&nbsp; What Nepal needs is leaders who focus on improving the basics: education and health, and everything else would work out on its own. We are betting on Balen because he has made a difference in Kathmandu as mayor, and now it is time to think about the whole country. It is not guaranteed how much he will be able to accomplish, but there is an actual possibility for real change this time and that is what matters.&nbsp;