PM Modi’s message at AI Action Summit: Open source, sustainability, job optimism (original) (raw)

While he called for global collaboration to harness Artificial Intelligence (AI) for economic growth, social transformation and sustainable development, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday emphasised the need to build quality data sets that are “free from biases” and embrace open-source models. He also carried a rather hopeful message on the potential impact of AI on jobs.

Modi’s call to embrace the open source architecture comes at a time when China’s low-cost open source DeepSeek model has shaken up the AI industry, drawing comparisons with its heavy-pocketed Western counterparts like OpenAI and Google. Unlike DeepSeek, both the American models are not open sourced, although there has been some industry criticism of the distillation process leveraged by DeepSeek to fine-tune its model.

The emphasis on AI models that are “free from biases” comes in the backdrop of the Indian government looking to fund foundational models that understand the Indian context. In the past, there have been instances where some models have answered similar questions about various world leaders differently. A large section of the Indian government believes that these don’t capture India’s varied nuances.

Besides, India has a rich legacy and literature in a number of local languages which may not have the same online footprint as some languages commonly spoken in the West. As a result, the information contained within those cultures remains under-represented in most models. The models that will be built in India are expected to emphasise this.

Sustainability: ‘Plug, baby, plug’ vs ‘drill, baby, drill’

The world, or at least most of the world leadership, agrees that AI is going to be an energy intensive endeavour, and would need to rely on cleaner sources of energy from a sustainability point of view. In this backdrop, nuclear energy is in focus as a viable source for powering the data centres that are expected to come up to meet the growing computing demand amid the AI boom.

In Paris, Modi, too, talked about the “high energy intensity of AI”, and the need for “green power to fuel its future”. “At the same time, sustainable AI does not only mean using clean energy. AI models must also be efficient and sustainable in size, data needs and resource requirements,” he said.

The PM’s statement on sustainability in AI comes amid the US and UK’s reluctance to sign the Paris AI Summit declaration over the use of phrases like the need to build “inclusive” and “sustainable” AI, according to a report in Politico.

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Speaking at the AI summit, French President Emmanuel Macron said the country can power massive, energy-intensive investments in AI thanks to its nuclear energy production. “I have a good friend in the other side of ocean, he says drill, baby, drill. Here there is no need to drill, it is plug, baby, plug,” he said.

Macron was referring to US President Donald Trump’s use of the phrase “drill, baby, drill” in his speech ahead of taking office, signalling that his administration would push for more oil and gas production as well as consumption in the US.

Optimism on jobs, focus on skilling

Taking a rather optimistic line on AI’s potential impact on jobs, Modi said work “does not disappear due to technology” but its “nature changes”. He called for “skilling and re-skilling” people.

This is a departure from some other commentaries on AI and its impact on jobs that have come from the government. For instance, the Economic Survey of 2023-24 said that AI could cast a “huge pall of uncertainty” on workers across skill segments in India, with those working in more backend operations such as business processing outsourcing (BPO) facing the most threat.

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This year’s Economic Survey said that India’s workforce in low-skill and low-value-added services remains vulnerable to AI, and called for the creation of “robust institutions”, which could help transition workers to medium- and high-skilled jobs, where AI can augment their efforts rather than replace them. “Although the impact of AI on labour will be felt across the world, the problem is magnified for India, given its size and its relatively low per capita income,” the Survey said.

A recent study released by QS said that while Indian businesses had a high demand for AI-related jobs, employers were highlighting a critical gap in the workforce’s ability to meet the demands of a rapidly changing economic landscape.