Rahul Matthan

Ex Machina

2025

New Forensics
The Opportunity Downstream
A 3-Step DPDP Compliance Guide
AI Governance Guidelines
Steering Humans
Safe Openness
Label the Truth
Lawyers and Engineers
A New Approach to War
Curiosity
Cognitive Liberty
Reclaim The Rudder
AI Tech parks
Nanny State
FREE-AI
A Driverless Future
Full Circle
Mobile Number Validation
Writing for Readers
Legal Evolution
Rare Disease Platform
Tragedy of the Commons
Moderating With Tokens
Learning Not Copying
Are We There Yet?
Innovation not Intimidation
Forging The Narrative
Big Data Protection
Verifiable Credentials
De-Extinction
Bias is Good
Enhanced Geothermal
Possible Futures
DPI Thinking for COP30
Transparent Take Down
420. The Cost of Cold
419. Assembly Theory
418. Threading the Needle
417. Consent Managers
An Internet for energy
Is There Anybody Out There?
New Identity Solutions
Targeted Legislation
Taking Stock
The Report on AI Regulation
The DPDP Rules: First Impressions

2024

A Look Back at 2024
Secondary Use of Health Data
A New AI Law
A DPI for Climate Change
AI Liability
Tech Solutions for Use Limitation
A Tidal Wave of Disruption
Networked Privacy
AI Optimisation
The Ban Reflex
Acquiring Genetic Data
Homo Privaticus
Data Transfer Interoperability
Learning to Read
A DPI for Non-Financial Data
The Grand Bargain
The Loss of Immunity
Synthetic Biology
ON Courts
A Commitment to Reuse
Storytelling Reimagined
Open AI Innovation
DPI for Competition
Are We Willing to Change
Digitally Accessible
Time Limited Arguments
AI Companions
Good Governance
Diversity Through AI
Controlling AI Export
Open Source Governance
Ideas for Acceleration
The Finternet
Getting AI to Work for You
Age Tokens
A New Model for UPI
In Favour of DPI
Casino or Computer
Technophobia
Monopoly Over Dematerialised Violence
Learning from Failure
Virtual Power Plants
CAS Regulations for AI
Liars Dividend
Embracing ODR
The Zone of Mischief
Micro Robots
NYT v. the LLMs

2023

Looking Back on 2023
The Big Telecom Reform
AI for the Global South
Human Writing
Governing the Governors
No-one Left Behind
Brazilian DPI
Pandora's Box
A New Delhi Effect
The Third Way
No Time for False Modesty
Solar Geoengineering
Managing AI Disruption
The Governance Module
New Delhi Declaration
DPI Solutions
Proof of Humanness
We've Got Work To Do
The Business End of the DPDP Act
Studying Human Infection
Mad AI Disease
Around The Corner
Sharp Lines
Neither Good Nor Bad
Safety Innovations
Musical Intelligence
Fear of the Unknown
Truckin
Rule Makers
In-Built Bias
Ill-Advised Advisory
Moderating Systems
Digital Gender Inclusion
AI's GDPR Problem
Pro-Innovation Regulation
Future of Technology
Designing Data Governance
Containing AI
An Explosion of DPI
The Unified Ledger
Dis-Content
Does AI Copy
Existential Angst
Your Face is Your Boarding Pass
Alt Big Tech
Momentous Change

2022

Looking Back
Idea Factories
Truth and LLMs
Sufficient Decentralisation
Data Breach
Digital Personal Data Protection
Federated Social Media
Data Governance - The DPI Way
Green Fuel
It's Getting Real
New Electronic Records
Asymmetry
Poorly Defined
Privacy Impact Assessment
Open Access
Rethinking Telecom Regulation
Rethinking Patents
The Language Barrier
Colour Me Purple
Ring Fencing
Space for the Private Sector
A New Digital Coin
Lawyer, Disrupt Thyself
Judge Made Laws
The Cycles of Technology
Appealing Moderation
Pre-Legislative Consultation
Unreasonable Enforcement
Problems and Solutions
Data Breach Notifications
Context is King
Setting the Standard
The Unfulfilled Promise
National Priorities
Neutral Global Infrastructure
Full Circle
Virtually Mine
Global Data Stability
Different Strokes
Timing is Everything
Autocracy or Vetocracy
Accessible Legal Systems
Somebody's Watching Me
Funding Science
Backfire

2021

Centralise or Federate
Light at the End of the Tunnel
Smart Regulation
Crypto Regulation
Phages and Precision Medicine
Predicting the Future
Privacy Self-Management
Calculated Communication
Should AI own IP
Identity and Privacy
Opening Closed Spaces
The Future of Title
Unpacking the Retail Stack
The App Store Tax
A Technolegal Approach to Data Transfers
Striking a Balance
The Dark Cloud over India's Micro-Entrepreneurs
The Metaverse Opportunity
To Forget or Not to Forget...
Encoding Privacy Principles
The Micropayment Alternative
The Skies are Free
Breaking the Rules
The V2G Opportunity
Patient Capital
Free the Skies
Networked Thought
Hybrid Work
Intermediaries Liable
The Rural Challenge
A New Westphalia
The Vaccine Waiver
Vaccinate
Judicial Sector Reform
Non Fungible Tokens
Overlap
The Subscription Economy
The CBDC Alternative
Radical Map Reforms
Age Gating
Traceability is Antithetical to Liberty
The Big Tech + Media Bargain
Competition in Telecoms
Principle Based Regulations
Electronic Evidence
Gatekeepers at the Edge
Data is not the New Oil
The Underbelly of Digital Lending

2020

Retrospective
Derived KYC
The Great Unbundling of WiFi
Tools For Thought
Subscribing to Things
The Bright Side of Life
Next Generation Map Technologies
Contract as Code
Bring Back Interoperability
Moderating with Moderation
Platform Regulation
The App Store Evolves
The Cost of Orphan Drugs
Agile Tech Regulations
Consent to Port
We Don't Need Large Datasets
New Umbrella Entities are not a good idea
The Beckn Protocol
The mission to put health records at doctors fingertips
How to make online payments bustle with competition
Data localization could soon be the worldwide reality
India’s 21st century dilemma of global non-alignment
Why community data trustees should also be regulated
The untold story behind the evolution of privacy rights
An education model that best suits the realities we face
Algorithmic collusion is a possibility to watch out for
Immunity passports might be inevitable as we go along
A Golden Opportunity for Judicial Reform
Online Dispute Resolution
Shield online platforms for content moderation to work
An opportunity lost for an internet we could all rely on
How the covid pandemic could reshape life in our cities
Aarogya Setu and the value of syndromic surveillance
Tech-enabled oversight could put innovation at threat
The Jio-Facebook deal and our need for a privacy law
Mobility datasets could help India exit the lockdown
The need to strengthen India’s internet infrastructure
The privacy features that are built into Aarogya Setu
The corona crisis must not make us shut the world out
Liberties yielded in this crisis could set a new normal
What the top court’s order means for virtual currencies
Platform technologies could deliver a vaccine quickly
The trade-off between privacy and content traceability
The Centre could yet ride to the telecom sector’s rescue
Let’s update the notion of ownership to the digital age
Prepare for a world of quantum haves and have-nots
Lessons on internet governance from the concert hall
We must act to stop the future from turning dystopian
We need greater clarity on internet freedom in India
How Britain got ahead of us in economic development
The future is here. It is just not evenly distributed yet

2019

The rise of TikTok and regulatory eyebrows in the US
The value of scepticism in the age of deep-fake videos
We must guard against the casual disregard of science
Not All It Could Be
The trouble with using DNA matches to nab criminals
A blueprint for an effective data protection authority
Why our attempt to escape online outrage might fail
Why it’s not okay to compromise privacy for security
The case for meat options that taste like the real thing
Store data efficiently to get insights for justice reforms
We may need a whole new approach to data protection
Agility should characterize the future of governance
Adaptive legal advice for shape-shifting businesses
Forensic DNA technology and the miasma of distrust
It’s better to use incentives than diktats to develop AI
End-to-end encryption must be retained at all cost
The competition law and data advantage conundrum
The popularity and regulation of competitive eSports
A new framework for consent to ensure data privacy
We need a cost-benefit analysis of data localization
UPI is world-class and it’s time to take it international
A three-point plan to improve tech policy formulation
Creative destruction and the global music industry
A rethink of the grid design to shape our energy future
The perilous consequences of automation dependency
Rising machine intelligence is a double-edged sword
The government and Big Tech need to meet halfway
The needle in the digital haystack
Why shutting down the internet is no longer an option
The chilling consequences of the Internet of Things
How capitalism evolved to drop its defence of privacy
Machines can err but humans aren’t infallible either
It’s time to frame rules for our artificial companions
Get set for a blend of reality and its augmented version
How digital trust systems can guard against false data
Of digital competition and data transfer principles
The dilemma of trying out new cures for malaria
The need for an online dispute resolution mechanism
India's draft e-commerce policy is more a miss than a hit
Technology is making us less open to divergent views
For the digital world, customer is truly king
Policy advocacy is really an exercise in compromise
Account aggregators and e-consent for credit markets
Ridding the judicial system of human subjectivity
Time to redo FDI in e-commerce in India
The Aadhaar amendment and private sector access
The utter meaninglessness of anonymizing telecom data sets

2018

When privacy, the word of the year, came into its own
Getting the Earth out of the Anthropocene period
Manufacturing drugs on demand
The downside of gene editing
The use of technology in providing healthcare
The challenge of detecting fake content
Using artificial intelligence more effectively
Genetic matchmaking can improve medical outcomes
Ensuring that the vulnerable benefit from Aadhaar
Technological restrictions in the new drone policy
Restoring the original vision of the internet
The Aadhaar verdict: everybody lost
The risk of planetary geoengineering
Optimizing the flow of road traffic
When parents damage their children’s digital privacy
Leveraging new technologies for development
Disruption and innovation in the legal industry
Limiting the government’s ability to violate privacy
Autonomous transportation at scale is here
The lady with the lamp and data-driven medicine
Balancing Big Data and privacy
The Achilles heel of the draft personal data Bill
Complexity will be the privacy law’s undoing
A creeping expansion of TRAI’s authority
Easing the regulatory burden on the Internet of Things
The need for innovation in the legal sector
India should make clear laws on data collection
History shows us how to deal with news echo chambers
Elon Musk wants to colonise Mars but Earth needs to write its constitution first
The unintended consequences of Europe’s GDPR
Will humans be part of the wars of the future?
How connected devices will change our lives
Artificial Intelligence and the Law of the Horse
A game of Chinese whispers in the Aadhaar case
The futility of prohibiting bitcoin trade
Internet was designed to understand and track us
A new direction for data privacy in healthcare
India need not adopt the onerous European General Data Protection Regulation
Do away with consent to strengthen data privacy
Will technology be able to disrupt the legal industry?
Does right to life include advance directives?
Genetic diseases should be covered by insurance
Battery harmonization will help electric vehicles
The backfire effect and the menace of fake news
Decentralised Urban Management
Where have all the polymaths gone?
The future of retail
In defence of friction
The circular economy
Skinny Solstice
Biology as engineering

2017

Bitcoin and the law of centralization
Data subject first
Unintended consequences of autonomous transportation
War of the machines
Trust works two ways
Tabula Rasa
Recommendation engines
What will the new jobs look like?
The psychology of hate
False confidence
Intermediating supply and demand
Drones to the rescue
Privacy and household finance
The Good and the Bad of the Privacy Ruling
Breaking Down Data Silos
Needed: A Fact Rank Algorithm to Flag Fake News
The robots are taking our jobs
A New Hope for Personal Privacy
Augmented Reality
Path to Self Improvement
A la Carte Medicine
The Highway Ban
The Future of Ownership
Blockchain Land Records
Path Dependence
Cutting out the Middleman
Perfect Price Discrimination
When Algorithms Learn to Recognise You
Aadhaar: The Fine Balance between Identity and Anonymity
The Myth of the Average Man
The Morality of Technology
The Ethics of Persuasion
The Great Manure Crisis of 1894
The End of Life
The Movement of Ideas
A New Paradigm for Privacy
Insuring Previvors
Collaborative AI
FOMO and the Law
Uberisation of National Transport
GPS is a Time Machine
Colluding Algorithms
Regulatory Sandbox
Rare Diseases: Orphan Drugs
Big Bad Data
The Everest Spheroid

2016

Digital Inclusion for the 85%
Ready for the day the Machines Take Over
Cutting the Code with CRISPR
Its Time for Coveillance
The New Imperialists
The Rise of the Machines
Regtech Will Change the Way We Regulate
Quantified Self
The Remix Generation
A Database of our Maladies
Algorithmic Oversight
The Artist and his Audience
Data is a Capital Asset
Can we do without Cash
The Evolution of Identity
Where Did Our Map Regulations Come From
Lazy Legislation
From Ownership to Access
Using Tech to Ensure Data Symmetry
The New News
Blockchain Governance
The Demise of the Artisanal Lawyer
Consent is Dead
005. Drones Should be Regulated by City Traffic Laws not Aviation Regulations
The Ethics of Automation
Trusting the Sharing Economy
What the New Geospatial Bill Means for You
The Stiff Backbone of the Aadhaar Bill

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