‘India in bad position on AI’: Sam Pitroda

New York: India has made little progress in Artificial Intelligence (AI) despite the prominent role of Indian technologists in shaping the emerging industry, senior Congress leader Sam Pitroda has said, calling for the technology to be used to address the country’s courts, schools, healthcare and agriculture.

“India is in a bad position in AI. I’m sorry to say that. I don’t like to say that. Believe me. Indians are in a good position on AI. Two separate things,” Pitroda told IANS in an exclusive interview.

“There are a lot of Indian brains who shape AI. But as a nation, we have made very little progress. We have no policy on AI. We have no direction on AI. We have not used AI for our governance,” he said.

Pitroda, who played a central role in India’s telecommunications and information technology expansion, said the country should judge its progress by whether AI helps resolve challenges affecting ordinary people.

He cited India’s vast backlog of court cases as one area where the technology could make a direct difference.

“Can I use AI to settle my court cases? Finish. Can I just have a project, special technology mission on AI to settle court cases? Get that done, then I’d be very happy,” he said.

Pitroda said developing artificial intelligence for financial markets or challenges faced by Western economies was not enough. India, he argued, should focus its technological ability on its own social and economic requirements.

“Designing AI for solving Western world problem or some banking problem or some stock market thing is okay. It doesn’t interest me,” he said. “How is AI going to improve our education? How AI is going to improve our health system? Can AI bring the cost of health system down? How is AI going to be h- helpful to our farmers? Those are the issues.”

Pitroda rejected the suggestion that technology designed for Indian needs would have limited global relevance. Products created to address India’s problems, he said, could be useful across developing countries facing similar challenges.

“When you make made for India, it becomes made for world. Today, every product is a global, global product. It depends on what problem you are trying to solve,” he said.

Pitroda pointed again to the judicial backlog, saying other countries in Latin America face comparable difficulties. He also backed indigenous technological development and recalled India’s early work in building domestic capabilities.

“So definitely, I promote indigenous development. We did that in CDOT. We did that in CDAT. That was 45 years ago,” he said.

Those efforts, Pitroda said, helped create the skilled workforce that later powered India’s information technology sector.

“And we build human capacity. That human capacity today has come to our rescue. Seven million jobs in IT, seven million families lifted from poverty, at least, through IT. World recognition on IT. It is human talent from India,” he said.

Pitroda said India should deploy that talent to address the needs of poorer countries instead of concentrating primarily on commercially attractive problems in wealthy markets.

“We have to be really solving the problems of the poor. I have always said this for last 40 years, that best brains in the world are busy solving problems of the rich, who really don’t have problems to solve. As a result, problems of the poor don’t get the attention they need,” he said.

Pitroda, a telecom engineer and policymaker, is widely associated with the establishment of the Centre for Development of Telematics, or C-DOT, and the expansion of public telecommunications in India during the tenure of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. He later headed the National Knowledge Commission under former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

He has also advised Congress leaders on technology and public policy over several decades. His work has focused on telecommunications, digital infrastructure, knowledge systems and the use of technology for development.

IANS