Bharat Chamber of Commerce, organised an exclusive session on ‘Preparing for the Age of Artificial Intelligence’ addressed by Sanjeev Sanyal, member, economic advisory council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM), Government of India as the guest-in-chief.

In his address, Sanyal emphasised on the pivotal role of artificial intelligence (AI) in shaping the future of industries and everyday life. He drew parallels with previous technological revolutions, noting that AI will first impact high-skilled jobs before gradually affecting lower-skilled roles. Sanyal further observed that, “While AI promises to create new job opportunities, it will also demand flexibility and adaptability from systems, institutions and organisations, as resisting this inevitable change will only hinder progress.”

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Sanyal elaborated on the far-reaching influence of AI across diverse fields and industries. Sharing his views on the subject, he foresaw a transformative shift in tertiary education, where the infrastructure of institutions will be utilised for research initiatives, while conventional classroom activities—such as lectures and assessments—will seamlessly migrate to online platforms, reshaping the learning landscape for future generations.

Despite its many benefits, Sanyal outlined several caveats about how AI raises ethical questions regarding privacy, bias, and decision-making processes, which need to be addressed to build public trust. He underscored the significance of effective governance and regulation to ensure that AI development aligns with societal values and protects citizens and added, “Certain disruptions caused by AI may seem benign but may have catastrophic effects”.

Such occurrences highlight the potential for technological failures to disrupt essential services, leading him to advocate for comprehensive safeguards and ethical guidelines to ensure responsible AI development and deployment. In this regard, Sanyal noted that both the laissez-faire approach of the US where companies are asked to self-regulate as well as the bureaucratic regulation of China and the risk based approach of the EU which may stifle innovation may not work out in the long run. On the contrary, India should go for a balanced approach that promotes innovation while ensuring ethical considerations and safety are addressed. In this context, Sanyal stressed on the five key principles to effectively regulate AI such as: establishing guardrails and partitions; mandating manual ‘overrides’ and ‘authorisation chokepoints’; ensuring transparency and explainability; defining clear lines of AI accountability; and creating a specialist regulator.

On the occasion, Subhendu Mukherjee, founder-director, The Tenth Floor gave a presentation with live demonstration showcasing how AI can be seamlessly automated to meet the demands of contemporary society. He illustrated how AI can facilitate personalised learning experiences for students by utilising educational videos available on platforms like YouTube, allowing for both instruction and assessment. Furthermore, he highlighted the value of AI’s data scraping capabilities, which enable multinational corporations to gain insights into existing markets and client profiles while exploring uncharted territories. “Digital is good old human behaviour captured in data,” he remarked, underscoring the intrinsic connection between technology and human interaction.