AI has been an important aspect for driving innovation for the multiple challenges that we observe in a country as diverse as India. It is believed that unless we use technology to bridge the social divide that we are facing at present, we will not be able to achieve AI for all. However, to do this we will require harnessing collaborations and partnerships of multiple stakeholders so as to ensure prosperity for all. With this background, the session was moderated by Mr. BalenduSharma, Localization and Accessibility Lead, Microsoft Indiawho repeatedly emphasized accessibility of AI, innovation and partnerships as the 3 focus areas for attaining AI for all. He made it clear that the government has a large role to play when it comes to accessibility and that lack of appropriate skills, funding and infrastructure can affect the development of AI. To make the session interesting, he laid out specific questions to each panelist which gave a very refreshing idea about the work that is actually going on at the ground level and how AI is helping in achieving the desired results.

In his keynote speech, Mr. Bhaskar Gorti, President, Nokia Software and Chief Digital Officer, Nokia emphasized on three ways to understand and model AI for prediction. They are theoretical, scientific and deductive with the last one being most important as it involves the interpretation of the interaction of machines and human in a shared space. He introduced a new concept whereby he classified human thinking into two systems: System 1 which is unconscious, fast, automatic but error prone and System 2 which is conscious, deliberate, slow but reliable and emphasized the need to balance both the systems. Since the future of AI, which depends largely on System 2, will be more complex, he voiced that a new type of partnership would be required – a partnership between machines and a matured thought process of humans. 

Dr. Neeta Verma, DG, NIC was asked by the moderator to explain and share the work that NIC has done using this latest technology. In a very simple manner she stated that NIC have set up various Centre of Excellences which primarily focused on the application side of the government and that it mostly adhered to three basic dimensions a) use of AI in government and citizen on a large scale, b) application of AI on a day-to-day basis to make our lives simpler and c) cloud computing facilities to provide AI ready infrastructure to the government.She highlighted some use cases like Image Analytics for Swachh Bharat and virtual courts which have proved to be a great success during this time of pandemic. She concluded on a bright note stating that NIC has partnered with both government and industry in provisioning data to start-ups to validate their models.

Mr. K R Sanjiv, CTO, Wipro Limited, was specifically asked how prepared are we to adopt AI at scale and how does he look at AI from the lens of social responsibility. To this he evidently pointed out that there are three phases in an AI application. Phase 1 which was the previous phase and included mostly rule based applications, Phase 2, which is applying AI/ML for specific problems and a phase which we are at present and Phase 3 which will be a high volume and high complex environment for which we are still not ready. He emphasized on aspects such as standardization, the need for a common platform to scale up any solution and the willingness to make data readily available to all AI developers. 

Mr. Rudramani B, Vice President and Indian R&D Head, Dell Technologies, and Co-Chairman CII Centre for Digital Transformation, specifically spoke of AI from a hardware perspective and stated that to succeed, while AI is the fuel, the medium will be super charged computer system that has properties like massive storage capacity, high speed processing power and bandwidth. He mentioned that Dell Technologies is investing in innovation in computing systems. 

Mr. Arvind Gupta, Former CEO MyGov, rightly pointed out that India has an advantage in the form of trust from a geo-political perspective as many countries trust the data that India has been generating and collecting. He also added that India has the skill, the understanding of the ecosystem and the language of AI which only raises hope that she is at the cusp of taking the next leak.

Prof. M. Balakrishnan, Vice Chancellor, Satya Bharti Institute of Technology and Professor, IIT Delhi, brought in a fresh perspective where he stated that teachers in the field of AI should be paid well to continue with their good job. He also highlighted that despite the increase in AI-centric startups that the country has seen in the last few years, funding still remains a challenge to turn a prototype into a product.

Image from Pixabay