AI can be a socio-economic equaliser despite vulnerabilities

Information Technology’s new gift Artificial Intelligence (AI) enables handling data-created and stored in the binary of computer language - with a speed that surpasses human capacity with regard to collation and analysis.

AI makes technology itself 'smart' by way of enhancing 'productivity' per unit of 'resource' whether it is the 'human' resource or 'time'.

For all its resourcefulness, one should realise that AI is not a panacea for all human problems. No doubt that there has been a phenomenal increase in the capacity to analyse data, although it is still dependent on 'keywords' or 'patterns' fed into the computer system. The bigger difference is that this capacity-building requires the instrumentality of supercomputers.

The fact is that AI has surpassed the human capacity to absorb and analyse information but only in quantitative terms - not in terms of versatility of thought that the human mind is capable of harnessing.

With his 'imagination is more important than knowledge' quip, Albert Einstein was alluding not to any wild imagination but to the ability of the human mind to look beyond the facts in front, and to envisage 'what lay ahead'.

AI essentially serves people in the present without guaranteeing any capacity to control the future - beyond producing some learning for human beings about what to do or not to do to safeguard the collective good. It is playing a stellar role in diverse fields like health, education, agriculture, environmental research and entertainment.

Technology companies are offering newer forms of apps for entertainment and are reaping financial dividends, as would any entrepreneur. The flip side of the entertainment app is that children are getting addicted to it in a way that the obsession is bound to hamper their mental growth and create worries for their parents, guardians and teachers.

On the education front, the knowledge offered by IT platforms like mobile phones, iPads and robotic instruments should not be undermined.

What has brought AI into the news is the entry of ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by OpenAI. It is a Generational pre- trained transform class of language models and is task specific. Its very description, however, confirms the input-output matrix of AI.

ChatGPT can have attractive applications. However, its own acknowledgement of the possibility that there could be incorrect responses, puts an element of risk in its operation.

A fundamental point about the information on the internet is that its reliability should never be presumed. In matters requiring serious decision-making, other corroborating inputs, therefore, should always be sought.

In matters of security, AI may have its use in detecting a breach of a technologically secured perimeter but the real call of security is to have basic intelligence.

AI works on data already fed into the system and does not go beyond indicating what would essentially be a repetition. AI is a potential threat to cyber security at the levels of nations, business entities and even individuals. Realising this aspect,

India has plans to address such security concerns in a more robust manner.

AI studies on machine learning have shown that 'linear thinking may give way to exponential thinking' sometimes but this would still be a 'continuity of the process' rooted in the analysis of the data already made available.

The human mind can use readings of the total environment around an issue as input, which is not given in an AI process. Even the importance of the 'prompt' is limited because this trigger essentially lies in what the system has in the present and does not enable AI to respond in the realm that belonged to the future.

Predictive findings through AI are useful in a very limited sense in the sphere of security and defence - satellite imagery, signal intelligence and surveillance or communication interception could be helped by it. However, in the fragile geopolitics of today while identification of a 'threat' could be refined through the use of highly developed technology symbolised by AI, the nature of 'response' is at the discretion of the individual.

In a nuclear setting, however, it is the first strike that has to be determined by the human mind though the second strike could always be automated. This was, in fact, the deterrence behind the Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) - the American strategy followed in the Sixties at the height of the Cold War. Nuclear deterrence somewhere still works on the certainty of the far more pervasive second strike.

The best field of AI application, however, is the socio-economic life of the people. Apparently, the world is already moving towards a consensus on that aspect. Presently, data analytics and emulation using the 'Internet of things' and cloud computing, offer the best utility whether it is distance learning, medical care, diversifying agriculture, aiding business operations or innovating games for entertainment. New services have enriched life making it more purposeful. AI-assisted new models of digital education and human resource development, through skilling, can help to prepare people for the present knowledge economy.

The threat of massive unemployment caused by AI is overestimated since its application will create new services requiring new hands suitably upskilled or re-skilled. Expansion of technology in the digital domain can create new jobs - Amazon is a good example of how advancement of IT leads to corporate expansion.

'Deep learning' AI networks discover intricate structures in the data they handle and learn from the same to produce phenomenal analytics. Industrial use of AI enables plants to optimise their power consumption during live operation and machines to perform quality control checks for making necessary adjustments while manufacturing is still on.

AI has the potential to address some of the biggest challenges in education today through powerful adaptive learning solutions. It has improved crop production and facilitated real-time monitoring, including weed detection, yield estimation and crop quality.

Domestic use of robots in household chores like vacuum cleaning, cutting work in lawns and cleaning the bottom of a swimming pool, can upgrade the quality of day-to-day life. AI in its own ways can prove to be a socio-economic equaliser and work for the amelioration of acute class divides in the society. It is a measure of India's advancement in digital technology that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during his recent meeting with OpenAI's CEO Sam Altman, appreciated AI's role in enriching the technology eco-system, particularly for the youth of India. Altman said that ChatGPT had been ‘fully embraced in India’.

IT applications are powerful instruments of economic growth but they are also vulnerable to being misused against India by our adversaries and an awareness of threats to cyber security must therefore run through our sensitive establishments, government organisations and even public bodies engaged in national projects.