Who Got AI First? A Partial Story of Access, from Big Machines to Your Phone

"for reasoning on consumer hardware with ≥16GB"

"at approximately $2,000) is only 18% slower compared to"

"Rule of thumb for 4-bit quantization: VRAM in GB ≈ parameters in billions × 0.6 — a 7B model needs roughly 4-5 GB."

"Common, ongoing barriers to the widespread adoption of informatics devices include poor information technology infrastructure in undeveloped areas, the cost of technology, and regulatory issues."

"Al momento de su presentación el 10 de agosto de 1962, las computadoras comerciales usaban válvulas electrónicas, lo que la convierte a la CEFIBA en la primera computadora transistorizada de América del Sur."

"Major drivers in the field included the need for pathologists to comply with national standards for health information technology and telepathology applications to meet the scarcity of pathology services and trained people in certain countries."

"el objetivo de la construcción de CEFIBA no era el de sustituir la utilización de computadoras comerciales, sino el dar una preparación profunda en los temas de técnicas digitales y del «hardware» a jóvenes ingenieros"

"Eso explica la audaz decisión de comenzar el diseño utilizando transistores, en lugar de las válvulas de vacío, comunes en la época."

"El costo de fabricación del prototipo se estimó en $ 75,000.00."

"However, the benefits of generative artificial intelligence are not equally accessible to all, especially in developing countries, where limited access to cutting-edge technologies and inadequate infrastructure pose challenges."

"ChatGPT is a generative language model tool launched by OpenAI on November 30, 2022, enabling the public to converse with a machine on a broad range of topics."

"ChatGPT launched in November 2022."

"ChatGPT, Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer-an OpenAI’s chatbot launched in 2022, is accessible to all by creating a free account of OpenAI4,5."

"by 700 million users, representing around 10% of the global adult population."

"In a very short time, ChatGPT has become popular among all fields as its professional artificial intelligence text generator created by OpenAI is quite versatile2,4."

"The first generation of commercial natural-language systems required mainframe computers with large amounts of storage and processing power."

"Intelligent personal assistants (IPAs) have become widely available, yet they remain primarily used for discrete, straightforward tasks."

"On October 24, 2018, Google Home devices became available to consumers in the Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, and Denmark to be used in their native languages."

"When the software is activated by voice, the user usually receives feedback in a form of lights (Google Dot, Alexa Echo), or changed screen (Apple or Google phones)."

"Voice assistants used by 46 % of Americans, mostly on smartphones."

"Given the dramatically higher levels of awareness of and experience with IPAs by US participants, we observed some distinct differences toward adopting the"

"I know it’s there. I know it’s present. I assume it’s listening."

"The first version of Claude was released in March 2023. [ 63 ] It was available only to selected users approved by Anthropic."

"since February 2026 free users in the US also see ads."

"The plans differ mainly by usage limits and model access rather than by unlocking different products."

"Die kostenlose Version von Claude auf claude.ai unterliegt dynamischen Nutzungslimits, die über ein rollendes Zeitfenster von etwa fünf Stunden berechnet werden, wobei die tatsächliche Anzahl möglicher Nachrichten je nach Komplexität und Länge der Eingaben variiert."

"Das Modell entspricht einem Freemium -Ansatz, bei dem die kostenlose Nutzung als Einstieg dient und erweiterte Kapazitäten über die kostenpflichtigen Abonnements Pro (20 USD/Monat) und Max (100 bzw. 200 USD/Monat) verfügbar sind."

"Anthropic veröffentlicht keine konkreten Grenzwerte für die kostenlose Stufe, was wiederholt zu Kritik an mangelnder Transparenz geführt hat."

"Durch die Einführung von Apps für iOS im Mai 2024 [ 122 ] und Android im Juli 2024 [ 123 ] wurde Claude auch für private Nutzer zugänglicher."

"Im April 2026 begann Anthropic, für einzelne Nutzungsszenarien eine Identitätsprüfung in Claude zu verwenden. [ 124 ] [ 125 ] Beim Zugriff auf bestimmte Funktionen kann Claude Nutzer dazu auffordern, einen gültigen amtliche"

"Ispell has a very long history that can be traced back to a program that was originally written in 1971 in PDP-10 Assembly language by R. E. Gorin , and later ported to the C programming language and expanded by many others."

"Ispell then attempts to generate a list of possible corrections and presents the incorrect word and any suggestions to the user, who can then choose a correction, replace the word with a new one, leave it unchanged, or add it to the dictionary."

"Unlike GNU Aspell , ispell will only suggest corrections that are based on a Damerau–Levenshtein distance of 1; it will not attempt to guess more distant corrections based on English pronunciation rules."

"Italy’s action has prompted OpenAI to improve the ChatGPT technology to ensure that it meets the standards of consumer protection, data protection, privacy, and public security standards, as set out in the General Data Protection Regulation for European Union countries."

"At least seven people have complained to the U.S. Federal Trade Commission that ChatGPT caused them to experience severe delusions, paranoia, and emotional crises"

"citing public records of complaints mentioning ChatGPT since November 2022."

"In early October, we released a new GPT-5 default model in ChatGPT to more accurately detect and respond to potential signs of mental and emotional distress such as mania, delusion, psychosis, and de-escalate conversations in a supportive, grounding way"

"We’ve also expanded access to professional help and hotlines, re-routed sensitive conversations to safer models, added nudges to take breaks during long sessions, and introduced parental controls to better protect teens."

"Facebook introduced its News Feed in 2006. In a 2016 company explanation, Facebook said that stories were ranked so users saw material it predicted they cared about first."

"Cards are based on what Google expects you to be interested in at the moment."

"Social media platforms must notify new and existing users over 16 and offer a clear choice for their default feed. They can opt in to personalized algorithmic recommendations. Or they can opt out and see only posts from friends and creators they deliberately follow."

"The plan to force platforms to notify users of their ability to “opt out” is a fresh concept, but the underlying right to assert control over a feed is not. European social media users have had that option since 2023."

"A feed can be ordered by time, with the newest post at the top. Algorithmic systems order it by prediction instead. They score each post by how likely a particular user is to watch it, click on it, or reply to it, and by how long that user is likely to stay with it."

"Users can also tell Google when they are not interested in certain topics to avoid seeing future updates."

"Digital services including online games, apps, AI chatbots and search engines would face new obligations to protect users, especially minors, from addictive design features and specific categories of harmful material."

"Every citizen would get an off-switch for the algorithms that hypnotise them for hours each day."

"The 1992 Tapestry mail system and the 1994 GroupLens news filtering system were early milestones before recommendation systems spread into e-commerce and other online services."

"Google Search query results have been shown by Internet activist Eli Pariser to be tailored to users"

"Legislation is slated for introduction to Parliament before the end of 2026."

"On background, it argued there was no single algorithm that can be turned off, and that a broad switch would strip out critical ranking and safety functions."

"In 2013, Google significantly upgraded its search algorithm with "Hummingbird"."

"OpenAI launched ChatGPT on November 30, 2022, and reached 1 million users within five days, roughly 200,000 signups a day during launch week."

"By December 5 th it had more than one million registered users."

"ChatGPT was released to the public as a “research preview” on November 30 th , 2022."

"ChatGPT makes its public debut in November 30, 2022"

"El modelo admite más de 50 idiomas, [ 1 ] que, según OpenAI, cubren más del 97% de los hablantes."

"Fue anunciado por la CTO de OpenAI, Mira Murati , durante una demostración transmitida en vivo el 13 de mayo de 2024 y fue lanzado ese mismo día."

"Focusing on the most-used AI platform, ChatGPT, as of May 2025, visits per internet user in high-income countries was nearly 50 times that of low-income countries, 8 times that of lower-middle income countries, and 3 times that of upper-middle income countries."

"the Government AI Readiness Index shows that most low-income countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, score far lower on AI preparedness"

"These differences are particularly salient between Global North and Global South contexts [21, 22], but they also manifest within nations along socio-economic, geographic, demographic, and educational lines."

"Measures that account for multiple platforms also find that in most Sub-Saharan African countries, less than 10 percent of the working-age population uses AI."

"Studies explicitly foregrounding equity, access and infrastructural constraints in relation to GenAI are comparatively scarce, particularly in under-represented regions such as Leba-non and the broader Global South [16, 28, 30, 31, 48, 49]."

"This is partly because data packages are prohibitively costly for many in poorer countries, where a data-only 5GB mobile package costs more than 15 percent of the average person's total budget."

"access barriers arise when some families cannot afford AI learning tools or when students lack access to the necessary technological facilities for tools like ChatGPT [9]."

"While substantial datasets exist for other languages spoken in high-income countries, there is a significant deficit for languages that are primarily spoken in low and middle-income countries."

"As of June 2025, high-income countries accounted for 77 percent of global data center capacity, middle-income countries for 23 percent, and low-income countries for less than 0.1 percent."

"Women in the Global South, who on average have less access to technology and STEM education due to systemic gender biases, risk being left further behind in an AI-driven economy"

"Map O.1 Very few low-income countries have published national AI strategies"

"A primary equity concern is the digital divide (OECD, 2024; Shabbir et al., 2024), where GenAI may either bridge or exacerbate educational inequalities. While AI tools can democratise learning, access remains limited in under-resourced regions."

"Figure 7.2 Mobile phone ownership remains limited in low-income countries"

"For the 6.8 billion people—83% of humanity—who live in low-income and developing countries, AI tools will need to be adapted to meet their needs."

"Shabbir et al. (2024) highlighted that AI can supplement resource constraints in developing countries, but infrastructure deficiencies and digital literacy gaps remain."

"Advanced AI models—largely developed in the United States and China—offer the ability to"

"Singh (2024) documented that most AI-enhanced education remains concentrated in urban centres, excluding marginalised communities."

"These AI models, however, require huge data centers and large amounts of complex computing power, using massive amounts of electricity and water—with implications for climate change."

"These systems are predominantly developed by companies based in the Global North, trained on datasets that over-represent Western languages, cultural contexts, and knowledge systems"

"AI solutions will need to be delivered through voice calls on basic mobile phones for those who cannot read or afford smartphones"

"Despite the promise of GenAI, the OECD (2024) noted that global policies lack actionable strategies to close these accessibility gaps"

"to invest in electricity generation and distribution; expand access to computing power; and improve the availability of local data."

"As of February 2025, through OpenAI's API it costs $75 per million input tokens and $150 per million output tokens, whereas GPT-4o only costs $2.50 per million input tokens and $10 per million output tokens."