Artificial Intelligence (AI) is here. It is true that AI will multiply manifold human capabilities and productivity. India has a huge and growing wealth of human resources (at least until 2050). However, its quality is significantly different from the human resources of developed countries. In a developed country, practically everyone is school-educated and a great proportion is college-educated. There is an opportunity for life-long learning and acquiring new skills. In India, the demographic dividend comes with demographic burdens. While school enrolment at primary level is very high, there is a decline, at every stage, in enrolment at upper primary, secondary and higher secondary levels. Gross Enrolment Ratio in higher education is between 45-50%. Most college-enrolled students acquire an undergraduate degree that does not make them ‘skilled’ or ‘employable’ — the main reason why it is an onerous task for young men and women to find suitable jobs.

‘F’ for future, also fear

I have read a summary of Mr Dario Amodei’s (CEO, Anthropic) copyrighted 38-page essay ‘The Adolescence of Technology’. On economic disruption, he says that AI could disrupt labour markets at ‘unprecedented speed and across wide occupational categories, potentially displacing a significant portion of jobs, especially white-collar work in the near term’. It is scary. Another study in India found that AI recognises caste. If humans have taught caste-bias to AI, it is scarier.

Hon’ble prime minister is right........

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