- The growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies and their deployment has raised questions about privacy, monopolisation and job losses.
- Technological change improves aggregate productivity, and the output of society goes up as a result.
- There is nothing special or different this time around with AI. This is just another round of machines being used to increase productivity.
- We must not forget that some AI-based systems are already operational and have been used for some time.
- For instance, AI is used today in facial recognition in airports in India and also by law-enforcement agencies.
- There needs to be a greater level of critical thought, study and understanding of the social and economic impact of any new technology.
- There’s a useful phrase called AGI, which stands for artificial general intelligence, which people are using to emphasise the uniqueness and capability of the human mind.
- Chat-GPT is just one big glorified database of everything that has been written on the Internet.
- And it should not be mistaken for the genuine human capability to think, to invent, to have a consciousness, and to wake up with the urge to do something.
- One important question in the field of technology policy in India is about checks and balances.
- What kind of data should the government have about us?
- What kind of surveillance powers should the government have over us?
- What are the new kinds of harm that come about when governments use technologies in a certain way?
- We also need laws for the deployment of AI-based systems to comply with Supreme Court requirements under the right to privacy judgment for specific use cases such as facial recognition.
- A lot of police departments and a lot of State governments are using this technology and it comes with error rates that have very different manifestations.
- This may result in exclusion, harassment, etc., so there needs to be a level of restraint.
- We should start paying greater attention to the conversations happening in Europe around AI and the risk assessment approach (adopted by regulators in Europe and other foreign countries) as it may serve as an influential model for us.
- On a global scale, it appears that there are many players. Already we can see OpenAI and Microsoft collaborating on one line of attack; we can also see Facebook, which is now called Meta, building in this space; and of course, we have the giant and potentially the best in the game, Google.
- And there are at least five or 10 others. This is a nice reminder of the extent to which technical dynamism generates checks and balances of its own.
- For example, we have seen how ChatGPT has raised a new level of competitive dynamics around Google Search.
- We should always focus on the word ‘productivity’.
- It’s good for society when human beings produce more output per unit hour as that makes us more prosperous.
- People who lose jobs will see job opportunities multiplying in other areas.
- For example- There used to be over one million STD-ISD booths in India, each of which employed one or two people. So there were 12 million jobs of operating an STD-ISD booth in India. And then mobile phones came and there was great handwringing that millions of people would lose their jobs. In the end, the productivity of the country went up.
- So we should not worry so much about the reallocation of jobs.
