Perplexity AI urges regulators to allow innovation

Perplexity AI, the conversational search engine powered by artificial intelligence that competes with Google, announced at this year's Mobile World Congress in Barcelona that the new generative AI mobile phone from Deutsche Telekom will be powered by its assistant.

The American technology company is asking administrations to support "continuous innovation" as it seeks to expand agreements with phone operators to integrate such tech into all kinds of devices, such as mobile phones, computers, and televisions.

“In the last two decades there has been no innovation in search engines," Ryan Foutty, vice president of the company based in San Francisco, told the Catalan News Agency (ACN).

"We realized that with artificial intelligence, there was an opportunity because the best technology was widely available thanks to APIs and open source models," he added. "We used this technology to build a product that is not oriented to showing links but answers.”

The company's engine is committed to not showing ads that influence the results that users see, who can also control and eliminate some of the sources that contain the answers.

The company has gone from answering 2,000 queries per day to 20 million in its short life so far. “Our goal is to reach more than 100 million queries per day, and then 100 billion," he said.

AI has helped Perplexity grow so rapidly, Foutty says. “It is the first time in a long time that the best technology is not owned only by a few companies, but is completely available with open source models."

At a time when the United States and the European Union clash over the regulation of the technology sector and artificial intelligence in particular, Foutty recalls that this world is still in a very early stage and has asked administrations to support “continuous” innovation to allow consumers to access new technologies.

Unlike other companies such as Open AI, Perplexity does not focus its business on building language models, but rather they look for what is best for the answer requested by the user within a variety of models.

Global South warns of AI inequalities

The Global South is warning of the “inequalities” and “power relations” that lie behind the use of AI. “We have 21st century technology with 18th century logic,” said researcher Paz Peña, who works on AI from Chile, while South African scientist Pelonomi Moiloa said the world must be "aware of the rights that are involved.”

In a roundtable discussion at the Mobile World Congress titled ‘Challenges and opportunities of AI from the perspective of the Global South’, both women outlined the “interests” behind the development of this technology.

“Who is benefiting from this technology?” asked Peña, who said there are “colonial relations” with its development. 

Along the same lines, the deputy director of the i2cat Foundation, Artur Serra, questioned how relations between countries have been rethought as a result of the emergence of this technology. “The paradox is that the old European empires have become colonies in the digital age,” he said. “They are consuming technology from other countries,” he added.

Peña indicated that Europe is “totally absent” from the development of AI and noted that this issue is in the hands of about fifteen corporations with a lot of power.

In turn, Moiloa warned that the effects of AI can be “limited” if elements such as language are not taken into account.

Catalonia's Minister for Foreign Action, Jaume Duch, brought the roundtable event to a close. He pointed out that the emergence of AI has had “many advantages” but also “challenges” related to data privacy and perpetuating discrimination with algorithms.

In this sense, he stressed that it must be used in accordance with fundamental rights, democracy and legality. “It is necessary that technological development be carried out in accordance with more ethical models,” he said.