Under the omnipresent web of globalization, it is no longer amusing to find people from the Below Poverty Line stratum on a Delhi roadside engrossed in watching a film on a Samsung tablet. Such wonders don’t cease to amuse one as technology continues to stride into the third decade of the twenty first century following a progressive journey into the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’. As Klaus Schwab, founder and Executive Chairman, World Economic Forum who conceptualized the term in his book states, this revolution ‘builds on the Third, the digital revolution.’ For him, it is velocity, scope, and systems impact that have aided its evolution at an ‘exponential rather than a linear pace’.
As a result, efficiency, and effectiveness have become key principles enabled by the technological innovations in diverse fields of governance, trade and commerce, health, education, transport and communication etc. In this scenario, reducing costs and time, increasing speed, real time information accessibility, and emerging technology breakthroughs in fields such as artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things, nanotechnology, biotechnology, and quantum computing, etc. have boosted the internal functions of the states in the west and the east alike, promoting competition and thereby, raising productivity.
India's case for Artificial Intelligence
Given the ruling government’s emphasis on drawing from the benefits of the digital revolution and its policy orientation towards ‘Digital India’, ‘cashless economy’, ‘Skill India’ and ‘Make in India,’ it won’t be long that India moves towards excessive investment in Artificial Intelligence (AI). With an estimated potential of AI in making India ‘achieve the $5 trillion economy benchmark over the next five years’ as per a statement given by Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal on Jan 6th, 2020 while inaugurating the National Stock Exchange (NSE) Knowledge Hub in New Delhi, AI can act as a vital component for India’s economic growth. Beyond the economic bunce, statements like “the nation that leads in artificial intelligence (AI) will be the ruler of the world” made by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2019 tend to engender political pressure on ambitious developing states. Moreover, in view of China’s expeditious advance in AI-based research, analysts have emphasized that India views AI as a crucial instrument of its national security strategy. Thereby, the likelihood of India steering to attain AI excellence is an irrefutable future reality.
Recent Strides in Innovation and Technology
The twenty-first century has seen gradual policy changes in favor of AI research. While the market for AI in India has been exponentially growing since 2011 at a CAGR of 86% higher than the global average, India also attained the rank of the third biggest AI-focused start-up hub among the G20 countries in 2016. Moreover, India’s five rank improvement from 57th position in 2018 to 52nd position in the Global Innovation Index 2019 is a significant marker of India’s strides in innovation and technology.
Roadblocks to Overcome
However, India faces a number of challenges in its ambitions for developing and deploying AI-based systems. The Fourth Industrial revolution, as Klaus Schwab pointed out, ‘will most probably cause a major wave of “relocation” of production to the industrialized economies of the North, as automation becomes the main driver in business competitiveness - not cheap labor’. As a result, the development of AI technology in India may endow it with greater losses than gains. Posing a grave threat to employment in the country is only one chink in the armor; the more sinister prospect looming over the Southern economies is fear of losing their sovereignty and economic independence. Analysts conceive the two technological hegemons, the USA and China, as actors ready in line to pounce on and capture the AI-based markets of countries like India.
For India, this sad reality has been an outcome of it’s stagnant education curricula breeding no talent to produce and innovate in the field of AI, the paucity of computer infrastructure, and a more industry-oriented barrier erected by the established AI giants like Facebook and Google which deter Indian entrepreneurs from investing in AI based start-ups.
Reforms and Opportunities for Educational Institutions
For India to create jobs and skills to cater to an AI-based future it is imperative that the state reconsider its stance viz-a-viz the education curricula to make it more skill-oriented. The government, to develop critical thinking and kindle innovative spirit, must collaborate with educational institutions on robotics and automation related projects. Further, the government must provide scholarships and internship opportunities in this field. AI-based vocational courses should be encouraged in institutions of higher learning. As mentioned earlier, the government must develop AI as a crucial component of its national security strategy. Hence, among other policy measures, the government can also sponsor universities to support student clubs for unleashing their creative and innovative ideas in developing AI based defense equipment. Moreover, in line with the Atal Tinkering Labs set up in schools under the Atal Innovation Mission of NITI Aayog to foster curiosity and imagination and inculcate skills like design mind-set, computational thinking, adaptive learning, etc., initiatives for AI-based research and development labs in engineering as well as social science universities must be encouraged.
Given the rapid progress of countries like South Korea, Japan, China, Germany and the USA as the mascots of the digital revolution, India must harness its boundless potential for human resource in providing for AI-based jobs and skills market. Not only would this help India secure its strategic interests in the form of non-reliance on foreign tech giants but also restrict future brain-drain in the field of Artificial Intelligence-based education, and job opportunities along with promoting highly skilled AI professionals.
- Ambika Singh
(B.A. (Hons.) Political Science, III Year)
(Edited by Shreya and Pallavi)
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