AI for all

UNESCO in collaboration with the IT Ministry held a stakeholder consultation on safety and ethics in Artificial Intelligence, an official release said recently adding that India aims to craft a policy that envisions ‘AI for All’.

The event marks the launch of a series of five consultations under the AI Readiness Assessment Methodology (RAM), an initiative by UNESCO and the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) aimed at crafting an India-specific AI policy report.

The report’s objective is to identify strengths and growth opportunities within India’s AI ecosystem while providing actionable insights for the responsible and ethical adoption of AI across various sectors, the release said.

“India aims to craft an AI policy that envisions ‘AI for All’ aligning with global ethical standards to promote the responsible and ethical adoption of AI across various sectors,” the release said.

The UNESCO South Asia Regional Office, in collaboration with MeitY and Ikigai Law as the implementing partner, organised a stakeholder consultation on Safety and Ethics in Artificial Intelligence (AI), the release said.

The consultation brought together diverse stakeholders from government, academia, industry, and civil society to explore strategies for aligning India’s AI ecosystem with ethical principles in UNESCO’s global recommendation on the ethics of AI, emphasising transparency, inclusiveness, and fairness.

The AI RAM serves as a diagnostic tool that identifies opportunities for member states to engage, particularly in AI regulatory and institutional capacity-building efforts.

“As India continues its rapid AI growth, this ethical alignment of AI governance will foster a holistic AI ecosystem for safety and trust, aiding a vision of AI for all,” the release added.  

Breakout sessions facilitated in-depth discussions across key areas, including governance, infrastructure, workforce, and sectoral AI adoption. Participants provided valuable inputs, shaping the foundation for India’s AI policy roadmap. These collaborative efforts aim to address gaps, prioritise opportunities, and ensure ethical AI practices that contribute to societal well-being.

The Indian government’s multifaceted approach includes building an AI ecosystem that leverages resources in higher education, research and industry. India’s National AI Skilling Framework recommends AI courses for students starting in 6th grade, to train over one million new data science professionals needed each year. New organisations including Future Skills Prime, NPTEL and the Centre of Development for Advanced Computing (CDAC), are developing a wide range of AI courses for schools and for adult learners. While Europe has a highly regulated AI sector, India is developing broad guidelines for ethical and socially beneficial AI use. The Indian National Strategy for AI was developed in 2018 by the National Institute for Transforming India Commission (NITI) Aayog, a public policy think tank, to guide AI development to advance five key strategic sectors — healthcare, agriculture, education, and developing “smart” cities and infrastructure in India.

Progress is being made across India using AI to meet urgent needs in health, agriculture and education. A cellphone-based AI system enables early diagnosis of retinopathy, a diabetes-linked disease that is estimated to affect 17 per cent of India’s population over age 50. Early diagnosis can enable millions of patients the promise of earlier treatment. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has funded an AI agriculture initiative in Telangana state where 7,000 farmers have demonstrated a 21 per cent increase in crop yields, with reduced use of fertiliser and water, and the programme will now scale up to reach 500,000 farmers. Using smartphones, AI is helping Indian teachers advance their digital skills and providing personalised tutoring in remote rural regions.

A flourishing EdTech and startup AI sector, boosted by India’s already strong foothold in IT and computer hardware, is building out new Indian AI systems, often in partnership with universities. Reliance Industries, Ltd, has funded the development of a new Jio Institute for AI and data science education, as well as an AI Data centre to develop local AI models. Reliance is offering 100 GB of free cloud storage to users across the country to help new startup ventures. Univitt Technologies has partnered with the newly established Universal AI University and the NVIDIA corporation is developing new AI programmes with the Thapar Institute of Engineering and Technology. A huge new computing centre near Mumbai, operated by the startup Yotta, will power AI systems across India with thousands of the latest GPU chips. Other AI startups, such as Sarvam AI, are developing models in 10 Indian languages and Karya, is collecting multilingual speech data and providing employment in rural India in support of new AI models.

In India, a country with a burgeoning young population and diverse educational needs, AI holds immense potential to revolutionise the education sector. By personalising learning experiences, improving administrative efficiencies, and expanding access to quality education, it can play a pivotal role in addressing the challenges faced by the education system. However, for a seamless integration of AI, significant governance reforms are essential to ensure that these technologies are effectively and ethically implemented.

While the promise of AI in education is bright, it is only through responsible and informed adoption that AI can truly fulfil its potential and ensure all have equitable access to quality education. Artificial Intelligence is reshaping the world around us and the ways we learn about it. Traditionally, education has been conducted on a one-size-fits-all basis, where students learn through the same curriculum at the same pace. This model generally overlooks students’ needs and learning styles.

AI in education empowers educators to customise every learner’s classroom experience. AI enables personalised student-centred learning in education today and uses adaptive learning platforms.

In 2020, USD 2 billion was invested in AI in education. According to Grand View Research, the sector will continue growing at a compound annual growth rate of 36 percent from 2022 to 2030. This steep growth has huge potential for transforming the future of learning powered by AI.

Technological advancement is said to have brought innovation into education, especially with AI-driven tools that can process millions of information and make decisions like the human brain. These tools encourage learning and make it more accessible, personal, and interesting for learners.

AI automates some of the time-consuming tasks, like assignments and multiple-choice tests; it also allows for live interactions between students, teachers, and group leaders through chatbots. Some language-learning chatbots power AI and allow direct communication for learning foreign languages with custom-made answers, thus making things much easier to learn.

The AI technology for emotion recognition keeps students engaged in studies and sustains excitement for the same through activities that are quite enjoyable and lead to the development of social skills, too, along with the enhancement of intellectual abilities.

The Indian EdTech market is projected to grow to USD 10.4 billion by 2025, driven by the increasing adoption of AI and digital learning platforms. According to a report by KPMG, AI-powered learning platforms have shown a 20-30 per cent increase in student engagement and retention rates compared to traditional methods. India faces a significant teacher shortage, with a student-teacher ratio of 24:1, as opposed to the recommended ratio of 15:1 by UNESCO. AI can help mitigate this by providing supplementary teaching resources and automating administrative tasks.

India’s IT and ITES industries have been major contributors to India’s growth and economic boom, accounting for 7 per cent of the country’s GDP and employing nearly 5.5 million people, making the sector pivotal to accelerating the country’s AI adoption and transformation.

The impacts are sure to reach well beyond India. These pioneering approaches to using AI to revolutionise medicine, agriculture, healthcare and education can be adopted by many other developing countries, to help improve life for the 80 per cent of the people of the world living in the Global South.

Views expressed are personal