India’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations, Ambassador Parvathaneni Harish, has stressed the importance of promoting the responsible and ethical use of artificial intelligence at the world body and highlighted actions taken by the Government of India to integrate AI for good governance and developmental practices.
Speaking at the UN, Ambassador Harish underscored that technology is the bridge to leapfrog development and highlighted how it is being used in India to achieve economic and developmental outcomes.
He gave examples of national biometric systems, bringing financial inclusion of citizens as measures of integrating AI into development. He highlighted that in India, data has been used for for development.
“We have integrated national AI mission and systems in a manner that it can bring about the removal of digital divides within countries and among countries. We cannot afford to have anyone digitally left behind in the new era. So for example, when we have systems that are deployed, irrespective of your economic class or educational qualification, people are able to use it.
“When you have digital financial payment systems, a vegetable vendor will not wait to be paid in cash, for example, in Delhi or Mumbai and even though he or she is illiterate, is able to use a digital system to her advantage to conduct her daily business. Someone who is illiterate can open a bank account without any barrier of education or class by using biometric identification systems that are linked to the financial system. In a similar manner, our focus is on ensuring technological frameworks so that we have common design principles for AI. Systems that are open, systems that are modular, that are scalable and interoperable,” he said.
The Ambassador brought to attention that India has developed a lot of the digital governance tools in an open source format and put the whole source code on the internet, “which our friendly partner countries and companies can utilize to use and adapt it to their own particular national circumstances. This is indeed the future where we are not looking at AI as a threat but seek to develop in a cooperative, interoperable, opensource format where we can specifically adapt it to the conditions of different countries around the world. In such a situation, access to AI tools is not determined by the wealth or GDP of a country. It is not determined by their belonging to a particular club, but it is made accessible to all because at a global level, we cannot afford to have any country left behind in the digital age and in the AI age.”
The Ambassador reiterated PM Modi’s stance which he shared at the recent AI Action Summit in Paris, which has sought a strong cooperative framework amongst all nations so that better regulatory systems can be in place.
“So we have responsible AI and ethical AI, and most importantly, AI for all, with no one digitally left behind”. He noted that India will host the next AI Action Summit in India, and it will serve as a leading guiding principle.
(with inputs from ANI)
