GIST OF SANSAD TV : India & Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence

Introduction 

• Recently, India has been elected as the new chair of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) for 2022-23.
• Artificial intelligence has been gaining massive traction due to the enormous change in business operations. The trend will only grow further in the coming years.
• GPAI was initially set up by G7 and OECD members. So, in a way, it started as a club of developed nations.
• We shall be examining, how exactly India is going to use the chairmanship of GPAI and how Artificial Intelligence (AI) can be a game changer for India.

About Artificial Intelligence:

• It describes the action of machines accomplishing tasks that have historically required human intelligence.
• It includes technologies like machine learning, pattern recognition, big data, neural networks, self-algorithms, etc.
• AI automates processes and reduces human error but the principal limitation of AI is that it learns from the data. This means any inaccuracies in the data will be reflected in the results.

What is India’s interest in GPAI?

• As AI is evolving with time, there is a need that its standards and regulations must be built around ethical and responsible AI. And in that process, it must be ensured that the global south is represented and the voice of the developing world gets heard.
• Below mentioned points ensure that India must have a seat on the table so that we can become part of conversations and negotiations with regard to the development of ethical and responsible AI.
• India’s Tech Strength: Given India’s strength in technology, and digital transformation projects that India has implemented, which is commonly known as India’s stack, eg Aadhar platform, UPI, Digi-Locker, etc.

India Stack is the moniker for a set of open APIs and digital public goods that aim to unlock the economic primitives of identity, data, and payments at the population scale.

• World's largest pool of AI Talent: India has been the largest provider of AI-skilled workforce in the world. India is going to be the AI solution provider not only to India but to the world.
• Thriving start-up Ecosystem: India also has a vibrant AI start-up ecosystem in place. India stands 3^rd in Stanford’s AI vibrancy index.
• Leveraging AI to its Advantage: The AI-led transformation that India is experiencing makes it ideally suited to leverage the advantages that are coming through the AI that the world will be implementing.

About Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI)

• It was launched in June 2020, with fifteen members.
• The Global Partnership in Artificial Intelligence is described as the ‘fruition of an idea developed within the G7.’
• It is a multi-stakeholder initiative on artificial intelligence (AI).
• It aims to fill what it describes as ‘the gap between theory and practice on AI,' by supporting cutting-edge research, as well as applied activities, on AI-related priorities.
• Facilitating international cooperation: The initiative facilitates international cooperation on artificial technology by bringing together on a single platform, experts from fields such as science, industry, civil society, governments, international bodies, and academia.

Members Countries:

• The founding members are Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Slovenia, the UK, the US, and the EU.
• At present, GPAI has twenty-five member states
• All the countries of G7 including the European Union are members of GPAI.
• India joined as a founding member in 2020.

Highlights of the Annual GPAI summit

• The meeting discussed these four themes:
• Responsible AI,
• Data governance,
• Future of work,
• Innovation and commercialisation.
• With National Programme on AI in place and a National Data Governance Framework Policy (NDGFP), India highlighted its commitment to the efficient use of AI for catalyzing the innovation ecosystem around AI.
• The NDGFP aims to ensure equitable access to non-personal data and focus on improving the institutional framework for government data sharing, promoting principles around privacy and security by design, and encouraging the use of anonymization tools.
• It was primarily based on the principle of AI for all, meaning AI will be used for economic growth and social development. It focuses on using AI to ensure people benefit and the key pillar which forms the basis for the same are:
• Promoting research in AI
• Building compute facilities in AI
• Ensuring AI skilling
• Ensuring Financing for AI startups
• Building large-scale solutions based on AI (eg moonshots, which can be deployed at the national level)

Moonshot: In the technology business, a moonshot is “an ambitious, exploratory, and ground-breaking project undertaken without any expectation of near-term profitability or benefit.

What will be India’s priority as a chair of this organization in 2022-23?

• Greater Adoption of AI: Working with the member countries, and expert groups, to come out with a strategy to lead to greater adoption of AI.
• Showcasing Strength: India will be showcasing its strength in building solutions based on AI for tackling societal problems.
• Adding new areas to GPAI: Although the thematic areas are well defined in GPAI India will be working on new areas which are not there and one such area is climate change.
• Becoming a voice of the developing world: India will be looking at the opportunity of the developing world or the global south in evolving the regulations around ethical and responsible AI.
• Centre of Excellence in India: To develop AI solutions for the health sector and agriculture sector, India is looking forward to establishing a center of excellence in India. As of now, GPAI has only two centers of excellence, Montreal and Paris.
• Future of work: Some mundane jobs will cease to exist affecting employment and we need to work on strategy over skilling, re-skilling, or upskilling the existing workforce.
• Updating Curriculum: We need to ensure that our curriculum has the required aspects to impart our youth with the skill necessary to get new jobs.

Need for ethical and responsible use of artificial intelligence:

• Principle of responsible AI: Principles for Responsible AI is an approach document for India towards creating responsible AI for all and has been published by NITI Aayog in February 2021.
• It is titled “Towards Responsible AI for All” towards overcoming such challenges. It can be considered as a roadmap for the adoption of AI across sectors in a responsible manner.
• Some of the important principles that have been considered are equality, safety & reliability, inclusivity & non-discrimination, transparency, accountability, and privacy & security.
• Democracies need to think that if we don’t have a regulatory framework with regard to the development of such technologies, then how it can impact behavior that may not be in the best interest of everyone?
• Explainable AI: Whenever AI is being used for any particular purpose, it should be the responsibility of the person who is providing the solution to explain how they are using the data, analytics and what its impact is going to be.

Expected Contribution to the Indian Economy:

• AI is expected to add USD 967 Billion to the Indian economy by 2035 and USD 450–500 billion to India’s GDP by 2025, accounting for 10% of the country’s USD 5 trillion GDP target.
• According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), the AI market in India is anticipated to develop at a CAGR of 20.2%, from $3.1 billion in 2020 to $ 7.8 billion by 2025.

Future of AI in India:

• AI will simplify Learning: Artificial intelligence (AI) is used to digitize textbooks, early-stage virtual tutors support human instructors, and a facial analysis system gauges student emotions to identify who is struggling or bored and adapt the experience to their specific needs.
• AI is enabling 24/7 customer service: In a diverse nation like India, integrating chatbots into the digital framework or making them accessible through the IVRS system in the educational domain could be transformative.
• AI for Healthcare: AI’s ability to process massive amounts of data quickly makes it useful for designing and creating new products, including medical equipment. Having an AI-enabled system enhances efficiency and reduces medical errors.
• AI at our homes: For voice recognition tools, like OkGoogle, ALEXA, or Cortana employ machine learning and artificial intelligence that helps in identifying which voice belongs to whom. They increase their efficiency by learning from the commands of the users.
• The Growing Career Opportunities in AI: With new developments in the field of AI and machine learning, newer employment prospects also have emerged.

Conclusion:

Artificial Intelligence is undoubtedly a trending and emerging technology. It is growing very fast day by day, and it is enabling machines to mimic the human brain. However, there are also some challenges and problems with AI. Humans are morally responsible for the AI they create, deploy, and/or use. Therefore, we can conclude that it is a great technology, but each technique must be used in a limited way in order to be used effectively, without any harm.