India is ready to implement an agenda that will promote responsible AI application: PM Modi & Mukesh Ambani @RAISE 2020

The Union Government has organized a first-of-its-kind Artificial Intelligence summit to enable social empowerment and transformation in the world.

The Responsible AI for Social Empowerment (RAISE 2020) virtual summit, inaugurated on October 5^th by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, is a five-day Global Artificial Intelligence summit held in partnership with industry & academia.

At RAISE 2020, the organizers have created a global forum for the world's leading stakeholders. It will be a platofrom to exchange ideas and chart a common course for the adoption of Artificial Intelligence.

The discussions over the five days of the summit is expected to create an Action Roadmap for Responsible AI. A roadmap that can truly help transform lives and livelihoods across the world.

PM Narendra Modi’s address at RAISE 2020

While delivering his welcome and inaugural address, PM Modi said RAISE - Responsible AI for Social Empowerment Summit is a great effort to encourage discussion on Artificial Intelligence.

The Prime Minister believes that technology has transformed our workplaces, improved connectivity, and has helped solve key challenges. He sees the merging between social responsibility and AI will enrich AI with a human touch.

“Artificial intelligence is a tribute to human intellectual power. The power to think enabled humans to make tools and technologies. Today, these tools and technologies have also acquired the power to learn and think! In this, one key emerging technology is AI. The teamwork of AI with humans can do wonders for our planet,” assured Prime Minister Modi in his address.

Commenting further, he said, “In India, we have experienced that technology improves transparency and service delivery. We are home to the world's largest unique identity system- Aadhaar. We also have the world's most innovative digital payments system-UPI. This has enabled providing access to digital services, including financial services, like Direct Cash Transfers to the poor and marginalized. In the pandemic situation, we saw how India's digital readiness was of great help. We reached out to people with help, at the earliest and in the most efficient manner. India is rapidly expanding its optical fiber network. The aim is to provide every village with high-speed internet connectivity.”

PM Modi strongly envisions India to become a global hub for AI. He said all the stakeholders in the business and research of AI are working on the core principles of: Teamwork, Trust, Collaboration, Responsibility and Inclusivity.

The PM also indicated the recent adoption of the National Education Policy 2020 that focusses on technology-based learning and skilling as a major part of education. E-courses would also be developed in various regional languages and dialects. This whole effort is supposedly going to benefit from Natural Language Processing (NLP) capabilities of AI platforms. “We launched Responsible AI for Youth program this year in April, under this program, more than 11000 students from schools completed the basic course.  They are now building their AI projects,” indicated the PM.

He also assured that the National Programme on Artificial Intelligence will be dedicated towards rightful use of AI for solving problems of society. It will be implemented with the support of all stakeholders. RAISE can be a platform to brainstorm in this regard, he asserted.

1. In lines of using AI in meaningful ways, PM Modi laid out several challenges to AI-based creators. He wants Artificial Intelligence to be created for
2. the optimal management of our assets and resources. At some places, resources are idle. While in other places, there is a shortage of resources. He challenged AI developers if tech can help dynamically reallocate them to find optimal use? Can we delight our citizens with proactive and prompt delivery of services at their doorsteps?
3. AI in empowering agriculture, and healthcare-related issues.
4. Creating next-generation urban infrastructure. Addressing urban issues like: reducing traffic jams. Improving sewage systems and Laying our energy grids.
5. It can be used for making our disaster management systems stronger. It can even be used to solve the problem of climate change.
6. In India, we have several languages and dialects. Such diversity makes us a better society. Why not use AI to seamlessly bridge language barriers?
7. Why not use AI for knowledge sharing? There are few things as empowering as making knowledge, information, and skills easily accessible?

Importance of Algorithm Transparency

It remains our collective responsibility to ensure trust in how AI is used. According to PM, Algorithm Transparency is key to establishing this Trust. Equally important is accountability. We must protect the world against the weaponization of AI by Non-State Actors.

While we discuss AI, let also have no doubts that human creativity and Human emotions continue to be our greatest strength. They are our unique advantage over machines.  the smartest of AI cannot solve mankind's problems without blending with our intellect and empathy. We should also think of how we will retain this intellectual edge over machines? We should ensure that we take care so that human intelligence is always a few steps ahead of AI. We should think about how AI can help humans to increase their own capacities. I want to state again:- AI will unlock the unique potential of each person. It will empower them to contribute more effectively to society.

Mukesh Ambani’s take on RAISE 2020

According to Reliance Industries’ Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani RAISE 2020, among many elements, RAISE 2020 will address the role of AI in governance, promoting AI decision making to resolve human issues, adding responsibility to AI, developing the AI ecosystem, quantifying and analyzing the available data for economic progress, and more.

India has delivered 4G broadband coverage, to more than 99% of our citizens. We have gone from 155th in the world to number one in mobile data consumption. With 5G around the corner, India will maintain its leadership position, asserted Ambani.

He thanked the BharatNet initiative and the priority of connecting every home and workplace. He said India is now rolling out a massive pan-India optical fiber network, connecting not only all our cities and towns but each of our six lakh villages. This will put India among the top nations in fixed broadband as well.

Through PM’s Make in India initiatives, Ambani said, India is now creating the capacity for affordable manufacture of all necessary digital devices, sensors, and equipment in our own country.

“India is becoming a leading nation in compute power with world-class data centers. Along with IoT, this is laying the groundwork for smart platforms that will converge physical and digital domains and boost productivity and efficiency to unprecedented levels in all sectors of our economy. We now have all the crucial components in place to make India a premier digital society. Together, our economy and society will generate data at an explosive and exponential rate,” said Ambani.

Stressing on several aspects of AI, Ambani also indicated that data is the raw material for Artificial Intelligence.

He said, “Intelligent data is digital capital. It is a vital national resource. In the past, nations have competed on physical capital, financial capital, human capital, and intellectual capital. But, in the coming decades… nations will increasingly compete on digital capital. India has the unique advantage to harness its enormous digital capital for AI-driven development, which is bottom-up and inclusive.

This is because of our twin strengths of Democracy and Demography. When 1.3 billion Indians are digitally empowered, they will unleash a proliferation of new digital enterprises that will create faster economic growth, greater prosperity, high-quality employment opportunities, and better standards of living across all sections of our society.

We are confident that the government will introduce a sound data regulation framework to protect this national resource and ensure data privacy. Therefore, the time is ripe, and the tools are ready to make India a world leader in Artificial Intelligence and to make AI work for all Indians. It is important to understand the epoch-changing importance of AI.”

Apart from enabling India to be Atmanirbhar, Ambani believes AI and other associated technologies of the 4th Industrial Revolution will vastly expand India’s capacity to solve the most complex and pressing problems. Specifically, AI will enable India to move faster towards achieving the five ambitious goals set by our Prime Minister. First, of transforming India into a high growth economy on its path to $5 trillion.