Need To Harness AI For Indian Youth Despite Challenges: CEA Nageswaran

Chief economic advisor (CEA) V Anantha Nageswaran has emphasised the need for harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) to “profit” India’s youth as the emerging technology may lead to “huge dislocations” soon.

He was speaking at CII’s Annual Business Summit 2024 in New Delhi on Saturday (May 18). 

Citing the country’s huge population, he said that the dislocations could potentially be more “serious” for India as compared to other nations on account of such challenges posed by AI. 

“We need to prepare the youth for AI, since it is going to burst on us in a very spectacular way in the coming years and it will cause huge dislocations. We need to harness it and guide it in a manner that our youth are able to profit from that. That is a huge challenge which many countries face and India is one of them but our numbers make it that much more important and serious compared to many countries,” Businessline quoted Nageswaran as saying.

The CEA’s comments come amid growing debate around the benefits and the challenges posed by the advent of the new technology. On one hand, AI has opened the floodgates for a new ecosystem altogether which comprises startups building offerings and investors looking to fund trailblazing ventures.

On the other hand, industry veteran Sridhar Vembu has termed AI as potentially catastrophic while some critics have urged the Centre to formulate regulations to oversee the space. Notably, many other industry players have also nudged the government to adopt a minimal regulation approach to the sector. 

Amid all this, the Centre seems to have gradually started to build structures to regulate the space amid emerging challenges such as deepfakes and misuse of GenAI. Earlier this year, the government also issued a now withdrawn advisory directing digital platforms to seek its approval before launching “unreliable” or under trial AI models. 

While the advisory was withdrawn following criticism from the industry, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar recently said that a draft regulatory framework for AI would be released by July this year.

Not just him but even Prime Minister Narendra Modi also earlier flagged the misuse of AI. Earlier in the day, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) Secretary S Krishnan said that the central government was looking to regulate AI space in a way that does not deter innovation.

MeitY secretary also flagged over AI’s impact on the employment market and the job losses that it could create. 

At the heart of all this is the growing Indian AI space, which is projected to become a $17 Bn market opportunity by 2030.