Sachin Rana is posted as Deputy Commissioner of East Kameng District in Arunachal Pradesh. He has the knack of sharing his opinions in national dailies and has written several articles. 

He has also recently completed his second book. He has a deep interest in technology. He has this definite view that AI would be a game changer for the human race. 

INDIAai interviewed Sachin to get his perspective on AI.

How did a chemical engineering graduate transition into an IAS officer?

Thank you for the opportunity. The transition into the Civil Services was a destiny. After completing Chemical Engineering at IIT Delhi, I was working in an MNC in a decent position. One fine day, I finally decided to prepare for the UPSC as it was my childhood aspiration and the family's dream. So, I also came with the mindset of putting only two years into the preparation and testing the waters. The plan B was that if I could not succeed this time, I would return to the corporate world. However, I was blessed to get excellent guidance and support from all teachers, friends, and family.

I now also must submit that there is no other service like the Indian Administrative Service. It provides immense challenges, diversity, and opportunities in the workplace. From the very start of a career, immense trust, authority, and responsibility are put into an IAS officer so they can be prepared for bigger things in the country's administration.

Notably, the core values of humankind, such as Empathy, Respect, Professionalism, Collaboration, and Serving the underprivileged, are also reinforced in all the officers during their stay at LBSNAA, Mussoorie.

How did your interest in AI develop?

Academically trained as an engineer in one of the finest institutes of our country, I always strive for a scientific temper among all. During the last disruptive innovation of the human race in Information Technology, I was in school and could not sense it much then. But now, as the user and beneficiary of that revolution, I perceive AI's more significant disruptive potential.

AI captivates me with its mission to replicate human-like intelligence, enabling machines to learn, reason, and perceive their surroundings, which can be used in many fields, such as driving, automated response systems, medical procedures, and other regular decision-making processes in numerous fields. It also fascinates me through its potential to automate tasks, solve complex problems, and uncover hidden patterns, revolutionizing industries and thus making everyday life much easier for everyone.

AI's personalized experience and natural written and verbal language processing capabilities are the most user-friendly experience in this technological world. It will indeed bridge the digital divide for India and the rest of the world.

It is why AI is the vogue to think, dream, and live about.

You once mentioned possibly employing AI-based monitoring technologies in your region. What other AI-based strategies are in place for your area? 

As you can see, I desire to put AI-based systems into the Administration as early as possible. The opportunities are immense. It can be used in education to monitor the academic performance of students and can provide specific inputs for their improvement. It can help to transform teaching-learning into more impactful and targeted. It can easily monitor mundane tasks like the attendance of the students and teachers.

In Urban development, it can help us monitor the Town Planning rules implementation and control unauthorized encroachment. It can be deployed to take care of the regular task of Solid waste management. In Health, the patient database can be created, and he need not carry any previous diagnosis. The loss of transit time for accessing the medical results after the test can be reduced to nil. The best possible medical consultation can be accessed from any part of the country.

Works department performance can be monitored from any computer system in real-time using images from satellites or drones. The quality control testing can be done live in the field. The best possible design in the given space can be created by Architects using AI tools. 

Similarly, Land records and other important documents issued by the government can be integrated with blockchain to make them more secure.

It can also automate mundane, regular, and no-brainer tasks to save the officials from monotonous jobs such as drafting note sheets and circulars and thus enable them to address other issues.

So far, I am curious about how to implement these ideas and seek assistance from all possible sources. Currently, in our district of East Kameng, Arunachal Pradesh, we are working on the possible and feasible uses of AI in Education and Solid Waste management.

What are all of the areas in which you believe AI should be used in public Administration?

Public Administration is the Policy Administration. In this, we as officers must engage all the stakeholders for Policy Agenda Setting, Policy Formulation, Policy Adoption, Policy Implementation, Policy Evaluation, and Policy Monitoring.

I spot the use of AI in all these six stages of Policy Administration.

AI can help us collect data, sanitization, and analysis, including predictive and scenario studies. It can help us gather evidence from the world of any similar policy and its impact and thus can assist in formulating inclusive and pragmatic Policy.

During the trial, corrective action can be collated before the complete rollout of the Policy Implementation. Resource mapping and real-time reasonable use can be monitored for compliance and effectiveness. 

For evaluation again, AI provides immense opportunities in Impact analysis, CBA, and feedback loops.

Using personalized local language and automated data collection and analysis can benefit Policy Monitoring and future course correction.

Hence, it can be used in almost all the department functions with similar ease. The need is to look for an opportunity and give it a break.

What advice would you provide to students who wish to pursue a career in artificial intelligence?

Today's students are tomorrow's world leaders. They must appreciate that they live in one of the best times of human civilization. They can access any university and any courses of interest with the clicks of a few buttons on their mobile phones or computers. They should appreciate this opportunity and start using it in the best possible manner for their advantage.

The students aspiring to a career in AI must engage in Mathematics, Science, Logic, and Computers. Start learning computer languages such as JAVA, Python, and Machine Learning Languages and frameworks at an early age. I encourage them to attend online courses on MOOC platforms like MIT edX, Google Canvas, Coursera, Udemy, and Udacity. Reading the latest research papers in journals and related magazines will keep them on the right track and motivated to innovate. I also urge them to join online AI-based communities to seek and give meaningful help and create Networks for their internships, higher education, and a fruitful and worthy career in AI.

What books or magazines would you recommend to students? 

The Hundred-Page Machine Learning Book by Andriy Burkov and Deep Learning by Ian Goodfellow, Yoshua Bengio, and Aaron Courville are the books I have read on the topic and found helpful. Hence, I persuade the readers to read these. Moreover, engaging material is available online on portals such as Kaggle, Data Science Central, MIT Technical Review, Dataquest, Indian Scenarios Indiaai, Wadhwani AI, Infosys Knowledge Institute and various AI-based Startups. Following industry leaders such as Sam Altman, Yoshua Bengio, Andrew Ng, and others on LinkedIn and other platforms such as YouTube can be an exciting turnaround for them.