What is the issue?
- The countries with advantage in Artificial Intelligence (AI) could soon take form as concentrations of global power.
- It is high time that India use to its fullest advantage the IT and entrepreneurial competence, and a huge domestic market.
What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
- The human brain uses multiple techniques to both formulate and cross-check results.
- AI is the simulation of this human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems.
- These processes include learning, reasoning and self-correction.
Why is AI unique?
- Most industrial technologies develop in laboratories and then get applied by businesses.
- But, uniquely, AI develops within business processes as data are mined from digital platforms.
- These are then turned into intelligence and reprocessed to produce more data and intelligence.
- So any country’s AI largely exists within its huge, domestically owned commercial digital/data systems.
- E.g. in the U.S. it is with Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft.
- In China it lies with Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent.
How is India in this regard?
- India is not making a rational use of its great advantages of high IT capabilities.
- It also leaves unplanned, the big domestic market required for data harvesting.
- India is thus far behind in this emerging Artificial Intelligence race.
- It has no large domestically owned commercial data systems as that of US and China.
- Bleak chance, if any, could be hampered by allowing takeovers like that of Flipkart by Walmart.
What is the threat?
- Economic - India’s consumer-behavioural and other economic data may soon be owned by Walmart and Amazon.
- This will offer them the scope to develop various kinds of Artificial Intelligence.
- Eventually, such AI will allow them to control everything.
- Every participant, along various economic value chains linked to consumer goods would be under their control.
- Power - Intelligent systems typically tend to centralise and monopolise control.
- Thus beyond economic dominance, AI influences cultural, political and military power.
- Notably, Google and Microsoft are partnering with U.S. military on AI applications.
- Likewise, China’s AI platforms are working even more closely with its military.
- Logically, in the coming time, whoever rules Artificial Intelligence will rule the world.
- A non-AI military against an AI-powered one would be at a great disadvantage.
What are the concerns for India?
- Competition - The digital/AI industry works in huge ecosystems with global digital corporations at the centre.
- The US and Chinese firms are trying to ensure the largest number of clients and followers possible.
- Given this, start-ups, including in India, are struggling to find a place in huge global ecosystems.
- Understanding - Indian IT industry leaders are conveying a wrong message that India is doing well with AI.
- But these are only in reference to the fragment of IT/digital business.
- The real need is creating the highest levels of new value chains that AI will create in every sector.
- Applications - AI applications talked about in India are largely in reference to eased agriculture output, precision medicine or tailored learning.
- But these are just a miniscule of global digital/AI corporations, giving one-off benefits here and there.
- Evidently, the AI engine owned by Google or Microsoft is gathering further data from each new instance.
- In the course of time, they become more intelligent about India’s problems and solutions.
- So a big nation like India cannot derive satisfaction from rapidly becoming a client country for AI.
- Owning the centres of systemic AI from controlling huge commercial data ecosystems is the real power.
What is the way forward?
- Policy makers should aim at building the systemic cores of AI where the real national advantage lies.
- India must welcome global technology companies to help India’s digital development.
- But the challenge is, while technology is global, data are essentially local.
- So India must start treating its collective social/economic data as a strategic national asset.
- It thus has a right to provide domestic data protection through policy.
- So data-based sectoral platforms, like in e-commerce, agriculture, health, education, should largely be domestic.
- Such policy protection will encourage large-scale data-driven Indian companies to develop the highest AI in every sector.
- After developing enough AI proficiency domestically, it should be used to go global.
Source: The Hindu
