New Delhi, February 17 AI is a hugely transformative technology that will disrupt every aspect of life, said former Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant on Tuesday, emphasizing that it must be accessible, affordable, accountable, and multilingual to avoid deepening global inequalities.
Speaking at the AI Impact Summit here, he also said that India had made significant progress in a short span because its systems were built on open-source architecture, open APIs, and global interoperability.
"There is no doubt that this is a hugely transformative technology. It will impact every sector, it will disrupt every way of life, and therefore it is very important that AI is made accessible, affordable, and accountable," he said at a session on AI for India's Next Billion: Intergenerational Insights for Inclusive and Future-Ready Growth.
The former G20 Sherpa further said that huge sums are being invested in AI, leading to significant disruption and may end up creating a highly unequal society.
He said that AI systems must be multilingual, otherwise vast sections of the population would be excluded.
"The challenge is whether we can ensure that AI reaches those below the poverty line... whether AI can be used to transform the lives of citizens and whether AI can be used to improve learning outcomes, health outcomes, and improve nutritional standards, which are major challenges before the world," he said.
Kant stressed that as the world progresses, it is important that the power of technology is used to transform the lives of citizens in the global south.
"If it is not used to the benefit of those below the poverty line, they will remain poor forever. If you are not able to use it for improving education, which is the key to improving learning outcomes, and what was physically not possible is now possible because of the power of AI," he said.
Kant also emphasized that it is important that when India or the global south builds its models, they are made using their own data.
"We have learned from our own digital public infrastructure, which enabled India to leapfrog in seven years, what the Bank for International Settlements said, 'India achieved 50 years of progress in seven years'," he said.
He said that India was able to do it because the systems were built on open-source architecture, open APIs and global interoperability.
"And therefore, today, we can make fast payments, we can do stock market transactions, we can do insurance, and we can provide credit to the last mile, based on this open-source infrastructure, because we have created the digital public infrastructure layer. But on top of that, we allow the private sector to innovate and compete in the market space," he added.
Kant further said that India is building 10 large language models, opening up data sets and providing computing power to startups and researchers at a lower cost.
"India must use its data, its talent, and distribute computing power to its citizens, so that we can benefit from this power," he said.
