As AI Goes Global: Lessons from the Mobile Phone Boom

Join us for a talk with Jonathan Donner, a researcher and consultant focused on advancing digital inclusion in the developing world.

Event location: Snell Library 350A
Address: 360 Huntington Ave. Boston

As the next billion people begin to use AI, most will likely interact with free and ad-supported versions, far cries from the frontier models and pricey subscriptions that get the attention. Yet these versions may still prove to be one of the most remarkable ways to reach the world’s digitized knowledge ever offered. The challenge is that digital infrastructures like AI that must be monetized tend to be built first for a relative few who can pay, while many more users will appropriate, ration, or work around what is available.

Drawing on 25 years of work in industry and the development sector, speaker Jonathan Donner will look for lessons from the mobile boom about how AI adoption may unfold next, and where it may stall. He’ll close with what builders, regulators, and practitioners can do with those lessons now, and how human and social research can support their work.

Speaker Bio: Jonathan Donner is Chief Knowledge Officer and Director of Research at Caribou. He holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University in Communication Theory and Research. As a researcher, author, and consultant, he is focused on advancing digital inclusion in the developing world. Previously, he was a researcher in the Technology for Emerging Markets Group at Microsoft Research in Bangalore, India, a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and a consultant with the Monitor Group and its spin-off, the OTF Group. In 2016, he was an Affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. In 2021-2023, he was a Visiting Faculty Fellow at The Hitachi Center for Technology and International Affairs at The Fletcher School at Tufts University.