Start here | Reasoned by Nikhil Pahwa

What I've written and what I'm planning to write, about the impact of AI

Hi, I’m Nikhil Pahwa, Founder and Editor of MediaNama. I write Reasoned.live

Reasoned is where I track how AI is changing the operating reality of the Internet: What breaks, what gets intermediated, where leverage shifts, and sometimes, attempts to figure out how creators can respond to it.

I’m writing this largely for people who build, create, market or own things online: founders, product builders, advertisers, artists and content owners to help them think about this rapidly evolving environment. Essentially, I am writing for myself.

If you’ve not read anything yet, here’s how to go about exploring Reasoned:

Essays

Long-form analysis on how AI reshapes markets, incentives, and control

1. Core thesis:

   1. A theory of the Impact of AI: What would a world without apps and the web look like? (on MediaNama)

   2. AI and the quiet rewiring of the open Internet (on MediaNama)

2. Platform Behavior:

   1. AI App Stores and MCPs:

      1. The Opportunity Trap of the ChatGPT App Store &

      2. How to beat the opportunity trap of the ChatGPT App Store

   2. AI Browsers: Understanding the AI Browser Wars (on MediaNama)

   3. The Intelligence Apple doesn’t own

3. AI and Social Media

   1. When AI enters the conversation

4. AI and Health:

   1. The product challenges that ChatGPT Health will have to navigate

5. AI and Ecommerce:

   1. When AI buys and sells for you

   2. Why commerce isn’t ready for AI yet

6. AI and Advertising

   1. When advertising comes to ChatGPT

7. AI and Education:

   1. What if AI usage was normalised in higher education?

8. AI and Society:

   1. Children: On Facial Recognition of Toddlers in Preschools (on MediaNama)

   2. Spam: On addressing the explosion in AI generated spam calls (on MediaNama)

9. AI and Agents:

   1. Why Meta bought Manus

   2. When AI acts as you, not for you

   3. A Declaration of the Independence of the Agentspace

10. AI Regulatory and Policies:

    1. The Gap Between Responsibility and Liability of AI (on MediaNama)

    2. Grok’s AI Images of Women Reveal the Cost of India’s Lax Digital Regulation (The Quint)

    3. The need for transparency and accountability in the functioning of Gig Economy Algorithms (Economic Times)

    4. AI and Copyright:

       1. AI, Creators and Consent: AI and the right to say no

       2. AI, substitution and the incentives for creation: AI and the fragility of creation

       3. Theft and data mining in AI

    5. AI and Deepfakes:

       1. Deepfake Detection: The gaps in YouTube’s likeness detection (on MediaNama)

       2. Deepfake Regulation: India’s flawed attempt at tagging outputs for addressing deepfakes (on Economic Times)

       3. Deepfake Impact:

          1. Policy issues that the Bandana Girl incident raises (Non consensual AI videos) (on MediaNama)

          2. Interview (video): Shreya Ghoshal on the impact of AI generated fake ads on X (on MediaNama)

11. Pending:

    1. AI and Search: [Planned]

    2. AI and the Classifieds Business [Planned]

    3. AI and its impact on Music [Planned]

    4. AI and its impact on Video [Planned]

    5. AI and its impact on Film Studios [Planned]

    6. AI and the Newsroom [Coming Soon]

Synthesis

Patterns, predictions, and takeaways drawn from essays

1. Reasoned Insights: 01-15, 16-30,
   Reusable insights and framing ideas drawn from recent essays. These are numbered.

2. Conversations: (coming soon)
   Reader responses, critiques, and counterpoints — with my replies.

3. Predictions: (coming soon)
   Forward-looking expectations drawn from recent essays. Reviewed over time. These are numbered

4. Questions: (coming soon)
   The things we don’t yet understand, but need to. These are numbered.

1. Notes (interviews/reporting/other peoples comments reported by me):

   1. People:

      1. Benedict Evans on why AI might change everything, but hasn’t yet (on MediaNama)

      2. Aifang Ma on How China regulates AI (on MediaNama)

      3. Max Schrems on AI Regulation: Separation of Data, Purpose Limitation, Politics of AI (on MediaNama)

      4. RS Sharma on Principles for AI for India: Interoperable, Frugal, Non-Monopolistic, Built for India (on MediaNama)

      5. Interview with Signal President Meredith Whittaker: AI, A Derivative Of The Surveillance Business Model (on MediaNama)

      6. A Critique of RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das’ Comments on AI and Big Tech Dominance Risks (on MediaNama)

   2. Panels:

      1. The Future of Humanoid Robots (on MediaNama)

      2. Should data protection authorities regulate AI? Notes from CPDP LatAm (on MediaNama)

      3. Generative AI for Bharat: Notes from a conference by Full Stack Capital (on MediaNama)