Author: Mariam El Hadary

Europe Agrees Landmark AI Regulation Deal

by Mariam El Hadary

With the political agreement, the EU moves toward becoming the first major world power to enact laws governing AI. Friday’s deal between EU countries and European Parliament members came after nearly 15 hours of negotiations that followed an almost 24-hour debate the previous day.

The two sides are set to hash out details in the coming days, which could change the shape of the final legislation.

“Europe has positioned itself as a pioneer, understanding the importance of its role as a global standard setter. This is yes, I believe, a historical day,” European Commissioner Thierry Breton told a press conference.

The accord requires foundation models such as ChatGPT and general purpose AI systems (GPAI) to comply with transparency obligations before they are put on the market. These include drawing up technical documentation, complying with EU copyright law and disseminating detailed summaries about the content used for training.

High-impact foundation models with systemic risk will have to conduct model evaluations, assess and mitigate systemic risks, conduct adversarial testing, report to the European Commission on serious incidents, ensure cybersecurity and report on their energy efficiency.

GPAIs with systemic risk may rely on codes of practice to comply with the new regulation.

Governments can only use real-time biometric surveillance in public spaces in cases of victims of certain crimes, prevention of genuine, present, or foreseeable threats, such as terrorist attacks, and searches for people suspected of the most serious crimes.

The agreement bans cognitive behavioural manipulation, the untargeted scrapping of facial images from the internet or CCTV footage, social scoring and biometric categorisation systems to infer political, religious, philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation and race.

Consumers would have the right to launch complaints and receive meaningful explanations while fines for violations would range from 7.5 million euros ($8.1 million) or 1.5% of turnover to 35 million euros or 7% of global turnover.

“We have a deal, but at what cost? We fully supported a risk-based approach based on the uses of AI, not the technology itself, but the last-minute attempt to regulate foundation models has turned this on its head,” its Director General Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl said.

Privacy rights group European Digital Rights was equally critical.

“It’s hard to be excited about a law which has, for the first time in the EU, taken steps to legalise live public facial recognition across the bloc,” its senior policy advisor Ella Jakubowska said.

“Whilst the Parliament fought hard to limit the damage, the overall package on biometric surveillance and profiling is at best lukewarm.”

The legislation is expected to enter into force early next year once both sides formally ratify it and should apply two years after that.

Governments around the world are seeking to balance the advantages of the technology, which can engage in human-like conversations, answer questions and write computer code, against the need to put guardrails in place.

Europe’s ambitious AI rules come as companies like OpenAI, in which Microsoft (MSFT.O) is an investor, continue to discover new uses for their technology, triggering both plaudits and concerns. Google owner Alphabet (GOOGL.O) on Thursday launched a new AI model, Gemini, to rival OpenAI.

The EU law could become the blueprint for other governments and an alternative to the United States’ light-touch approach and China’s interim rules.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of overwrite.ai and its owners.

This story has been published from an article in Reuters published on Dec 2023.

For informative news and views on the world of real estate, proptech and AI, follow overwrite on Instagram and LinkedIn, and keep up-to-date with our weekly NewsBites blog

About overwrite.ai

overwrite.ai is a multi-product deep-tech startup that develops proprietary Artificial Intelligence solutions to address inefficiencies in the MENA region’s massive +$3 trillion real estate economy.

overwrite | real estate content creation, reimagined

A Founder’s Game is Never Over

by Mariam El Hadary

A year ago we were written off by everyone. Fast forward 12 months, and we’ve smashed another record.

This past month, our real estate users generated over 10K new property listings using overwrite.ai 📈

So today when you browse any of the UAE’s leading property portals, you’re seeing thousands of adverts written by our GenerativeAI engine.

We’re banging out content to an industry that just can’t get enough of it.

The interesting part is that we’re not a gpt-wrapper app.

You see, we built our Language Model from scratch in 2021. Proprietary. And Bootstrapped.

When ChatGPT took the world by storm in November ’22, nearly every investor I spoke to expected it to be an existential threat to us.

I had faith in our strategy and our product. But I won’t lie, there were times even my faith was tested. Hard!

You must be thinking, what did we do to get more user engagement now than ever before?

Here’s the funny thing. We did nothing.

We haven’t actually changed anything in our product. Nor have we spent a penny more on customer acquisition.

We just stuck to our core belief. That we’d built a brilliant solution to a genuine problem.

Our Customers agree. So I dedicate this Win to them. And to the 24SIX9 Founders Community of Soldiers that have helped me keep the faith.

For informative news and views on the world of real estate, proptech and AI, follow overwrite on Instagram and LinkedIn, and keep up-to-date with our weekly NewsBites blog

About overwrite.ai

overwrite.ai is a multi-product deep-tech startup that develops proprietary Artificial Intelligence solutions to address inefficiencies in the MENA region’s massive +$3 trillion real estate economy.

overwrite | real estate content creation, reimagined

AI Is The Great Equalizer

by Mariam El Hadary

The past few months I’ve been mulling over a series of studies economists have conducted on the value of artificial intelligence in the workplace. How much, they wanted to know, does AI help white-collar professionals do their jobs? The productivity gains they’ve observed are substantial: AI is clearly making us better, faster workers. The numbers have prompted AI optimists to predict an economic boom and AI pessimists to worry about a future of fewer jobs.

The question isn’t how much AI helps out around the office but who it helps — and why.

AI, the studies indicate, is making us more productive in a weird way. It’s not helping everyone get better at their jobs. It’s mostly turbocharging workers who are bad at their jobs, while doing little to aid — or even hindering — those who are already productive to begin with. AI, in other words, is raising overall productivity by narrowing the gap between high performers and low performers. It’s equalizing white-collar work — a vast swath of the economy that has always been predicated on the assumption that some people will inherently be much, much better at their jobs than others.

Before we get into the broader implications of the studies, let’s start by reviewing their findings. Economists looked at the impact of AI in six different areas of work:

Creative writing. Researchers tasked people to write a short story, with and without the help of an AI tool for generating ideas. Those who had no spark of their own became as much as 11% more novel and 23% more enjoyable with the help of AI. But the tool didn’t benefit those who were already creative on their own.

Office memos. Researchers had subjects complete writing tasks that are common in professional jobs — think press releases, short reports, delicate emails. Access to AI made everyone faster, regardless of their skill level, by an average of 37%. But when it came to the quality of their writing, AI mostly helped the low performers.

Coding. Software engineers with fewer years of professional coding experience benefited much more from access to GitHub Copilot, an AI coding assistant, than veteran coders did.

Management consulting. Researchers graded professional consultants on18 knowledge-intensive tasks similar to what they actually do in their jobs. Access to GPT-4 boosted the scores of low performers by 43%, compared with only 17% for high performers.

Law school. Researchers administered an exam to law students with and without GPT-4. Students at the bottom of the class got a big performance boost. But access to the tool actually hurt the grades of the students at the top of their class.

Call-center work. Researchers measured the effects of a tailored AI tool that was introduced at a real call center. Novice and low-skilled workers became 34% more productive, while those with more experience and skill saw few benefits. Access to AI even slightly hindered the top performers on some measures, like conversation quality.

Adding to the Economists list is  overwrite.ai. Real estate agents can now significantly improve their efficiency by adopting generative AI. Using overwrite.ai to create property listing descriptions, means real estate agents can focus on higher value tasks, (such as closing deals), instead of time-consuming admin tasks.

So yes, AI boosts productivity in a wide variety of common office tasks, from repetitive work in low-paying call centers to complicated duties at elite management firms. And though most of the studies were hypothetical experiments in a lab — making their findings difficult to extrapolate to the real world — the call-center study looked at actual job performance at an actual company. But it’s how AI increases productivity that should interest us the most. Together, the studies present a strong case that by disproportionately boosting those at the bottom, this new generation of AI tools is narrowing the variation in job performance. In just a few short months, it’s already doing what decades of education have failed to do — it’s equalizing the American workplace.

Continue reading for more insight!

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of overwrite.ai and its owners.

This story has been published from an article in Business Insider published on December 2023.

For informative news and views on the world of real estate, proptech and AI, follow overwrite on Instagram and LinkedIn, and keep up-to-date with our weekly NewsBites blog

About overwrite.ai

overwrite.ai is a multi-product deep-tech startup that develops proprietary Artificial Intelligence solutions to address inefficiencies in the MENA region’s massive +$3 trillion real estate economy.

overwrite | real estate content creation, reimagined

Authentic to Hallucinate: 2023’s Words of the Year, AI-inspired

by Mariam El Hadary

In the age of deepfakes, identity crises and Elon Musk, Merriam-Webster Dictionary has announced “authentic” as the Word of the Year for 2023. In its announcement, Merriam-Webster said the word reflects what “we’re thinking about, writing about, aspiring to, and judging more than ever”.

The word “authentic” saw high-volume lookup in 2023 on the back of rising stories and conversations about celebrity culture, identity and social media, it said. Many celebrities, including Taylor Swift and Sam Smith, made headlines with their statements about seeking the “authentic self” and “authentic voice”.

However, the most significant bit in the announcement came in the fifth para, signalling the role of a technological breakthrough that has quickly become ubiquitous – artificial intelligence.

“And with the rise of artificial intelligence—and its impact on deepfake videos, actors’ contracts, academic honesty, and a vast number of other topics — the line between ‘real’ and ‘fake’ has become increasingly blurred,” the announcement read.

The latest entrant into the Word of the Year list speaks of the times we are in, with AI taking centre stage in newsrooms, boardrooms and, well, in pretty much all rooms.

Earlier this year, the Cambridge Dictionary announced “hallucinate” as its Word of the Year 2023. The announcement was followed by the tagline, “When an artificial intelligence hallucinates, it produces false information.”

In a recent feature in Wamda, Ayman Alashkar, the Founder and CEO of overwrite.ai, a leading AI development startup in Dubai, shares insights about Hallucinations and AI. 

“Hallucination is when Large Language Models make things up in order to deliver output, whether accurate or not. In use cases where high accuracy is necessary, LLMs that are output-oriented will, over time, prove inferior to their domain-specific alternatives that prioritise outcomes over output.”

Another lexicon, Collins English Dictionary, went a step further and announced “AI” as its Word of the Year 2023. The announcement said that the use of the word (strictly an initialism) has quadrupled over the past year.

One of the words that “authentic” beat to emerge as a winner was “deepfake”. According to Merriam-Webster, the interest around the word spiked after Musk’s lawyers in a Tesla lawsuit said he is often the subject of deepfake videos and again after the likeness of Ryan Reynolds appeared in a fake, AI-generated Tesla ad.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of overwrite.ai and its owners.

This story has been published from an article in Business Standard published on November 2023.

For informative news and views on the world of real estate, proptech and AI, follow overwrite on Instagram and LinkedIn, and keep up-to-date with our weekly NewsBites blog

About overwrite.ai

overwrite.ai is a multi-product deep-tech startup that develops proprietary Artificial Intelligence solutions to address inefficiencies in the MENA region’s massive +$3 trillion real estate economy.

overwrite | real estate content creation, reimagined

Exploring the Unlikely (AI) Connections

by Mariam El Hadary

Ever wondered about the challenges of regulating AI and predicting its impact on humanity? It’s a tough nut to crack, and some have chosen not to even try. 

Uncover the secrets as Ayman Alashkar, CEO and Founder of overwrite.ai discuss AI Regulation with Zeena Zalamea and Sonal Rupani on Dubai Eye 103.8. 🎙️

EU AI Act: Germany, France and Italy reach agreement on the future of AI regulation in Europe | Euronews By Reuters

Germany’s Economy Ministry, which is in charge of the topic together with the Ministry of Digital Affairs, said laws and state control should not regulate AI itself, but rather its application.

Digital Affairs Minister Volker Wissing told Reuters he was very pleased an agreement had been reached with France and Germany to only limit the use of AI.

“We need to regulate the applications and not the technology if we want to play in the top AI league worldwide,” Wissing said.

France, Germany & Italy believe the new AI rules should be binding for everyone

Initially, no sanctions should be imposed, according to the joint paper.

However, if violations of the code of conduct are identified after a certain period of time, a system of sanctions could be set up.

Read More…
GenZ Takes Charge: Unveiling Simple Hacks against DeepFake and Gen AI

Discover the tactics Gen Zers are using to protect their identity from BigTech in Ayman’s discussion with Zeena Zalamea and Sonal Rupani on Dubai Eye 103.8’s “The Reboot.” 🎙️

Watch now to learn how the next generation is steering clear of Artificial Intelligence pitfalls  👀🔐

Curious about what GenerationZ is doing to protect themselves from BigTech? Watch Now

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of overwrite.ai and its owners.

This story has been published from an article in euronews published on November 2023.

For informative news and views on the world of real estate, proptech and AI, follow overwrite on Instagram and LinkedIn, and keep up-to-date with our weekly NewsBites blog

About overwrite.ai

overwrite.ai is a pioneering, purpose-built real estate AI, creating engagement-oriented content for the real estate industry. overwrite.ai creates the marketing content that powers the real estate industries of the UAE, KSA, Egypt and Lebanon.

overwrite | real estate content creation, reimagined

Top 10 Roadblocks for the Real Estate Market in 2024

by Mariam El Hadary

Here are the top issues affecting real estate over the next year, according to CRE’s list.

“Additionally, the housing shortage and infrastructure issues continue to cause disruption.

This next year will be crucial to real estate. All eyes are on the future as we navigate these disruptions with a purpose for developing solutions.”

Each year, CRE surveys 1,000 real estate experts to gauge the emerging issues that could have the most significant impact on all housing sectors, particularly the commercial market.

“This past year has been challenging for some and opportunistic for others as the economy, office market and innovation continue to evolve and impact the market,” says CRE Global Chair William McCarthy.

Political unrest and the global economy. 

  • The real estate market is facing a turbulent economy and sagging office sector, which are exacerbated by inflation, slowing GDP growth, high interest rates, bank stress and rising geopolitical concerns involving Russia, China and elsewhere. “We still have mixed macroeconomic signals in the economy, which contributes to an overarching uncertainty on where things are headed,” the CRE report cautions. Still, these risks “don’t necessarily mean the sky is falling. However, it is critical to face the realities of the risks as real estate industry participants navigate key decisions and evaluate strategies.” The report calls for a micro-focused lens on the local landscape, since opportunities could vary tremendously from market to market.

The influence of hybrid work. 

  • Employers are recognizing that office space needs to become “destination-worthy” to bring workers back. This may even include hosting special events with food trucks that coincide with in-office days or creating patios and outdoor seating to help with employee retention. “If that property doesn’t check the box in some critical way—location, access, convenience, tenant amenities or even an amazing view—those owners need to start thinking about alternative strategies,” the report notes. In some cases, this could mean exploring reuse of obsolete office buildings as conversions into residential units, senior housing, health care facilities or hotels.

The housing shortage. 

  • The U.S. continues to face severe housing shortages, which has been pinned on decades of underbuilding. Research from the National Association of REALTORS® and Rosen Consulting put the housing deficit at 5.5 million units. Higher interest rates and ballooning construction costs are complicating calls for more multifamily units. The market for single-family homes also is facing higher costs. “The imbalance between supply and demand has contributed to a huge run-up in home prices in recent years, although pricing has started to stabilize—and even decline—in some markets,” the report notes. “Access to affordable housing has huge implications for real estate investors, economic growth, healthy communities and the need for people to live somewhere.”

Artificial intelligence. 

  • Access to real-time data, improved analytics and forecasting has become critical to investors as they weigh which properties they want to acquire, sell or hold. Artificial intelligence is helping to deliver that data, and recent advancements, including the much-hyped ChatGPT, are being applied to real estate. “The big innovations in commercial real estate will come not from ChatGPT but from the large number of proptech start-ups that are reimagining the idea of data collection,” the CRE report notes. “They’re incorporating mind-boggling amounts of data, and they’re adopting probabilistic frameworks to think about the future.”

The labor shortage. 

  • Finding skilled workers remains a challenge for numerous industries. The labor shortage has grown for a couple of reasons: an aging population of baby boomers who left the workforce in what became known as the “Great Resignation,” and new employment trends emerged among young professionals with unique views about the workplace. “The labor market has significant downstream implications for real estate,” the report notes. “Jobs drive demand for real estate, and populations also shift to where jobs are located.” Younger generations are choosing their lifestyle first and their job second—a reversal from previous generations. This is forcing employers to take note of migration shifts. Also, young professionals are showing a preference for entrepreneurship and remote or contract work.
The Counselors of Real Estate releases its annual list 
of top industry issues for 2024.

Migration. 

  • Housing affordability has been a prime reason for migration shifts away from urban areas, particularly on the West Coast and in the Northeast, the report notes. U-Haul’s Growth Index shows the top cities for inbound moves over the year are in more affordable places like Ocala, Fla.; Auburn, Ala.; Surprise, Ariz.; Madison, Wis.; and Myrtle Beach, S.C. Businesses are following the migration patterns and relocating from high-cost states to the Sun Belt region or interior parts of the country. “That shift has significant implications for the real estate industry in terms of growth opportunities, as well as the challenges ahead for property valuations, surplus space and obsolescence created in areas where populations are declining,” the CRE report notes.

Real estate Armageddon.

  • The economy, interest rates and inflation are making up what the report warns is a “real estate Armageddon.” The Federal Reserve’s funds rate is at its highest level since 2007 after a series of rate hikes over the past year. Owners, investors and developers across commercial real estate markets are feeling the effects of higher capital costs, tightened lending and the looming $1.5 trillion U.S. debt that is to mature by the end of 2025. Further, rising interest rates and high prices are shaking up both commercial and residential real estate markets, contributing to a decline in transaction activity. Urban economies may be at particular risk. “We are still in the throes of the late COVID era, and the disruption on major urban economies has yet to run its course,” the report cautions.

Supply chain, logistics and U.S. onshoring. 

  • The pandemic uncovered supply chain shortfalls, and companies are now reworking supply chain routes that once relied heavily on the West Coast. “The heart of America’s logistics infrastructure lies in the Golden Triangle,” the report notes, highlighting the interior section of the country that runs from the Great Lakes down to Texas and over to the mid-Atlantic. Charleston, S.C., is now the fastest-growing port in the country. “The remaking of supply chains coincides with a reshoring boom of manufacturing, and much of that growth is again focusing on the interior and southern states,” the report notes. The key drivers for new supply chain meccas are affordability, access to a growing workforce and logistics infrastructure, such as access to rail, roads and ports. This shift is creating “massive growth” and ushering in a “new e-commerce era” that is less reliant on urban areas.

Pricing reset.

  • As costs for capital increases, cap rates and property values tend to decrease. However, the pricing reset the market has been waiting for has been slow to materialize, CRE notes in its report. “A key hurdle is that buyers and sellers are still in a standoff. Sellers are holding out for values at or close to what was achievable prior to the interest rate explosion. Meanwhile, buyers believe values are much lower based on higher capital costs.” Repricing, however, could have major implications on commercial real estate and financial markets and will continue to play out in the second half of 2023 and into 2024, the report says.

America’s aging infrastructure.

  • The costs to repair and upgrade the nation’s aging infrastructure remains a concern. There’s money to help: $1.2 trillion in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and $783 billion in the Inflation Reduction Act. But CRE says it also creates an opportunity to rethink what types of infrastructure are needed. For example, the report notes: “Do you spend $5 billion to upgrade one regional power plant, or do you spend that $5 billion to build 20 smaller-scale decentralized power facilities? Those smaller facilities could be customized to generate power from alternative sources, whether it is solar, wind or waste, to energy, as well as change the way power is delivered.” The report also calls for local governments, cities, counties, private corporations, nonprofits, foundations and other associations to work together in helping to develop a new line of thinking about infrastructure at the local level that can support future population and economic growth.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of overwrite.ai and its owners.

 Melissa Dittmann Tracey writes for REALTOR® Magazine

This story has been published from an article in Realtor Magazine published on November 2023.

For informative news and views on the world of real estate, proptech and AI, follow overwrite on Instagram and LinkedIn, and keep up-to-date with our weekly NewsBites blog

About overwrite.ai

overwrite.ai is a pioneering, purpose-built real estate AI, creating engagement-oriented content for the real estate industry. overwrite.ai creates the marketing content that powers the real estate industries of the UAE, KSA, Egypt and Lebanon.

overwrite | real estate content creation, reimagined