Known by more than 1.5 billion people in the Indian subcontinent, Indic languages present unique challenges and opportunities for natural language processing (NLP) research due to their rich cultural heritage, linguistic diversity, and complex structures. IndicMMLU-Pro is a comprehensive benchmark designed to evaluate Large Language Models (LLMs) across Indic languages, building upon the MMLU Pro (Massive Multitask Language Understanding) framework. Covering major languages such as Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Punjabi, Tamil, Telugu, and Urdu, our benchmark addresses the unique challenges and opportunities presented by the linguistic diversity of the Indian subcontinent. This benchmark encompasses a wide range of tasks in language comprehension, reasoning, and generation, meticulously crafted to capture the intricacies of Indian languages. IndicMMLU-Pro provides a standardized evaluation framework to push the research boundaries in Indic language AI, facilitating the development of more accurate, efficient, and culturally sensitive models. This paper outlines the benchmarks’ design principles, task taxonomy, and data collection methodology, and presents baseline results from state-of-the-art multilingual models.
Category: Type: Research
In this category:
1. Peer-Reviewed:
Research Papers
Chapters
Conference Proceedings
2. Pre-Prints. Pre-Prints are standard in some fields. They are not always peer reviewed.
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Data Journalism Appropriation in African Newsrooms: A Comparative Study of Botswana and Namibia
Data journalism has received relatively limited academic attention in Southern Africa, with even less focus on smaller countries such as Botswana and Namibia. This article seeks to address this gap by exploring how selected newsrooms in these countries have engaged with data journalism, the ways it has enhanced their daily news reporting, and its impact on newsgathering and production routines. The study reveals varied patterns in the adoption of technology for data journalism across the two contexts. While certain skills remain underdeveloped, efforts to train journalists in data journalism have been evident. These findings support the argument that in emerging economies, the uneven adoption of data journalism technologies is influenced by exposure to these tools and practices.
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AI as a New Public Intellectual?
In a dialogue with ChatGPT, I asked if it could be considered a public intellectual.
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Data Journalism, Accountability and Transparency in Zimbabwe’s ‘New Dispensation’: Some Empirical Reflections
In this chapter, we explore the intersection of data journalism practices with issues of (governance) transparency and accountability. We advance the argument that data journalism can be instrumental in helping journalists seek accountability in opaque regimes that have an uneasy relationship with watchdog journalism. We use the Zimbabwe’s post-coup regime to demonstrate that at the centre of political authoritarianism, is a refusal to account, and a culture of non-transparency. Faced with such, the media can utilise publicly available sources of data journalism to exercise their responsibility. Data journalism is, hence, critical as a media practice that provides avenues for journalists in semi-authoritarian regimes to continuously pursue their mandates as accountability seekers. Our chapter contributes to emerging literature on data journalism in Africa, especially in semi-authoritarian contests like that of Zimbabwe.
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Louvre Abu Dhabi as a State Project: A Museum, a New Ministry, and the Politics of Culture
As the first universal museum in the Arab world, Louvre Abu Dhabi (LAD) aims to cover all aspects of human history, promoting inclusivity and openness. Despite being hailed as a symbol of tolerance and intercultural dialogue, some shortcomings and valid criticisms are evident. This study explores LAD’s artistic and political roles, as well as its contribution to social cohesion and the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE’s) readiness to address broader issues in line with the UAE Centennial Plan 2071. The analysis also delves into the responsibilities of cultural initiatives, the challenges of operating within an authoritarian context, and the necessity for policy reconsideration to achieve the UAE’s ambitious visions. The fact that LAD has undoubtedly served state interests highlights its limitation in engaging with the broader mission of museums—to address often-unpleasant political and socioeconomic matters. Moreover, the article asserts that constructive exchanges about critical issues should be embraced as opportunities rather than threats; suppressing these discussions through censorship and fear undermines the potential for growth and understanding. Thus, the study calls for a balanced approach where cultural institutions like LAD can foster dialogue and contribute meaningfully to the social and political landscape of the UAE.
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Trainees’ perspectives and recommendations for catalyzing the next generation of NeuroAI researchers
At this critical juncture in the development of NeuroAI, we outline challenges and training needs of junior researchers working across AI and neuroscience. We also provide advice and resources to help trainees plan their NeuroAI careers.
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Evaluating Online AI Detection Tools: An Empirical Study Using Microsoft Copilot-Generated Content
Our findings reveal significant inconsistencies and limitations in AI detection tools, with many failing to accurately identify Copilotauthored text. Examining eight freely available online AI detection tools using text samples produced by Microsoft Copilot, we assess their accuracy and consistency. We feed a short sentence and a small paragraph and note the estimate of these tools. Our results suggest that educators should not rely on these tools to check for AI use.
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Explaining the Comparatively Less Robust Human Rights Impact of the ECOWAS Court on Legislative and Judicial Decision-making, Process, and Action in Nigeria
This article outlines and tackles two inter-related puzzles regarding the comparatively much less robust human rights impact that the ECOWAS Court (in effect, West Africa’s international human rights court) has had on the generally more democratic legislative/judicial branch of decision-making and action in Nigeria vis-à-vis the generally more authoritarian executive branch within Nigeria, the country that is the source of most of the cases filed before the court. The article then discusses and analyzes the examples and extent of the court’s human rights impact on legislative/judicial branch decision-making and action in that key country. This is followed by the development of a set of analytical, multi-factorial, explanations for the two inter-connected puzzles that animate the enquiry in this article. In the end, the article argues that several factors have combined to produce the comparatively much less robust human rights impact that the ECOWAS Court has had on domestic legislative and judicial decision-making, process, and action in Nigeria, through restricting the extent to which the latter could mobilize more robustly the court’s human rights-relevant processes and rulings.
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From Crisis Management to the crisis of management: Accountability and Liberal Democracies in the Outbreak of the Covid-19 Pandemic
The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic shocked societies around the world. In their efforts to tailor their responses to the crisis to their own conditions for survival, from the outset governments tended to resort to arguments that limited accountability before their populations. Liberal democracies were no exception to this approach. In this context, their leaders used the metaphor of war to describe their position as guarantors of the population’s survival in the face of the new threat. Caught between uncertainty and the need to predict the nature and evolution of the invisible enemy, their responses called into question the political, professional and personal responsibility of leaders. This article offers a reflection on the level of responsibility of governments in liberal democracies in managing the pandemic. During the crisis, decision-makers tended to be driven by the narratives that were most beneficial to them in order to escape their responsibilities, thereby underpinning their short-term political needs through the use of bellicose metaphors, the blame game, competition with other countries, and the dispersion of sources in the decision-making process. This reality now calls for reflection by social actors, including experts, intellectuals and the media, to transcend the prevailing rhetoric in management of the pandemic and the “new normal” that followed, so that the dynamics of constant alterations in the rules of the game and responsibilities can give way, in the future, to a scenario with less arbitrariness and more accountability.
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The Climate Imperative: How AI Can Transform Africa’s Future
Africa contributes minimally to global greenhouse gas emissions but bears a disproportionate burden of climate change impacts. This article explores how artificial intelligence (AI) can bolster conservation and sustainability efforts across the continent. While challenges such as technological import reliance and digital divides persist, AI offers transformative potential by enhancing early prediction, disaster preparedness, and environmental management. Examples like Rwanda’s Wastezon, Ghana’s Okuafo Foundation, and Kenya’s Kuzi illustrate successful AI-driven initiatives. The article proposes adapting a public health prevention model-primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention-to structure AI-based environmental interventions. This approach would enable early detection of climate risks, timely mitigation efforts, and rehabilitation of damaged ecosystems. The authors also caution about AI’s environmental costs, including energy-intensive operations and resource extraction, advocating for ethical and Africa-centered AI solutions. Overall, the article argues that innovative, community-driven, and preventive uses of AI are essential for building climate resilience in Africa.
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GenAI and Religion: Creation, Agency, and Meaning
This paper explores the parallels between Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) and religious systems in three domains: creation, agency, and meaning-making. Both offer frameworks for human engagement but differ in intent, autonomy, and moral accountability. Despite these differences, GenAI and religion share roles as creators, influencers, and meaning facilitators. We address and counter rebuttals to these parallels, highlighting GenAI’s co-constructed outputs and its impact on modern meaning-making. The paper concludes with the societal implications of these parallels in shaping future thought and action.
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Generative AI through the Lens of Institutional Theory
This study examines the adoption of Generative AI (GenAI) systems through the lens of Institutional Theory. Using a mixed-methods approach, we analyze how coercive, normative, and mimetic pressures influence GenAI integration in organizations. Key findings reveal:(1) regulatory frameworks significantly shape GenAI adoption strategies, with variations across industries and regions;(2) organizations balance conformity to institutional norms with innovation, often through strategic decoupling;(3) GenAI’s unique capabilities challenge traditional institutional pressures, necessitating new governance models; and (4) early GenAI adopters emerge as new sources of mimetic pressure, accelerating industry-wide adoption. We propose a novel framework capturing the interplay between GenAI characteristics and institutional dynamics, contributing to both Institutional Theory and AI adoption literature.