The latest session of AI Pe Charcha, an event organized by INDIAai on 25th November 2021, aimed at examining the question of broadening the socio-economic gap because of AI advancements. The session also focused on discourse regarding frameworks and norms that can be developed and deployed by Governments and the Private sector to address these circumstances.

The event started with an Opening Note by Mr. Abhishek Singh, CEO of Digital India, MyGov, and NeGD. The panelists for the event were Mr. Richard Foster Fletcher, Executive chair of MKAI; Ms. Katharina Höne - Director of Research, Diplo Foundation, and Mr. Sray Agarwal - Associate Director - Data Science at Publicis Sapient.

In March 2020, entrepreneur and billionaire Elon Musk suggested that “AI is far more dangerous than nukes”, raising concerns in many corners. This isn’t the first time the adverse effects of scale AI deployment being discussed. Throughout the last century, via science fictions movies and novels, the idea of a grim dystopian future controlled by AI has been publicized a lot. With the private sector being a major driver of AI research and deployment, a lot of questions are raised about their ability to prioritize responsible and ethical actions over the pursuit of profits, alongside the rampant automation and job losses.

The session started with a welcome note from Mr. Abhishek Singh. Mr. Singh said that with the exponential growth in data and compute power, AI has caught everyone’s attention, has become the top of the hype cycle, and is impacting every walk of life. However, with the transfer of human thinking skills to machines, what will the result be? We are yet to see. Will it lead to job losses or more jobs? Will it strengthen society or induce bias? 

He opened the panel discussion to understand the speakers’ viewpoints.

The panel discussion started with Ms. Katharina Höne, presenting her views on the policy changes needed to reduce the socio-economic gap that may get created by AI. “Even if we take AI out of the equation we are already seeing some worrying trends that have basically nothing to do. This includes things like increasing inequality owing to globalisation, macro economic austerity, deregulation, and more”, said Katharina. She also stressed building upon the already existing laws, regulations, standards, and principles rather than trying to redesign and reinvent the whole structure.

Katharina also touched upon an issue of increasing inequality among the developed and developing nations for the readiness to adopt AI. Developed nations are well equipped and willing to opt for automation owing to high labor costs. Three things to address this inequality shall be capacity building, technology transfer, international financing opportunities.

Mr. Richard, on being asked about the future of automation said that it is hard to know what these technologies might look like down the line. Social media 10 years ago looked awesomely promising, however, now big brands are coming forward and saying no to social media marketing. For example, lush, the natural cosmetics company, came off all social media, saying, “We are done, its toxic.”

Mr. Sagar Shah, Client Partner, Fractal Dimension, moderated the session by asking insightful questions to the expert panelists.

He asked Mr. Sray Agarwal about the scenario around ethical AI in companies in USA and India. 

Sray said, “We are in an era of lack of ethical AI framework, principles, and practices.” He added, “when you implement ethical AI it becomes responsible AI.” He elaborately talked about the four parts of responsible area; fairness, explainability, privacy, accountability.

The session was followed by an Audience Q&A where people shared their questions over the topic and were elaborately answered by the panelists. You can find the recording of the AI pe Charcha on INDIAai’s website and social media handles.