Who wields AI, and how: 

Who wields AI, and how: 

Context:

• The role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in uniting the goals of development and public prosperity.

1. What is an Automation?

• An automation is a product of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
• It has been recognized as a harbinger of a different era of socio-economic relations.

2. What is the major concern?

• Surveys indicate that technologies related to AI will kill from a third to a half of all jobs within a decade.

3. What should be India’s national policy towards AI?

• There is an urgency of framing policy on AI in India.
• Over 90 per cent of the Indian workforce is organized informally and is vulnerable to sweeping economic upheavals.
• AI will promote the expansion of contractual economy resulting cut in wages.
• Automation has already been taken place in construction and manufacturing sector giving a blow to the contractual system.
• Construction and manufacturing labour force will not be able to collectively bargain against an industry when the sector starts adopting 3-D printing technology.

4. What would be the possible impact in the farming sector?

• The labors in the farming sector are already impacted by the pricing of produce.  
• It will suffer very badly due to the imported cheap food produced by automated farming.  
• Vehicle assembly line production is already being replaced by robots.
• Farm labour, already in peril due to pricing, will suffer due to the glut of imported cheap food produced by automated farming and the agricultural robotics industry.

5. How has the IT industry been impacted?

• Hiring has decreased by more than 40 per cent in the last year with sharper cuts predicted.
• Outsourcing and those jobs are at risk.
• Job creation figures in the non-farm formal sectors have fallen by half from 2011 to 2016.

6. What are the options that the government has?

• The government can ensure employment in the public works – works needed to raise living standards.
• The government must invest heavily in large infrastructure and development projects, and liberally use automation to free up sections of the workforce to work on them.
• Simultaneously, the government must encourage horizontal cooperatives based around AI to ensure knowledge-worker controlled decentralized progress in AI on the ground.

7. How will AI work in the Indian scenario?

• There is a necessity of shifting the workforce out of agriculture for a more just, equitable, and sustainable economy.
• The work force that would be freed from the agricultural sector will require a robust rural infrastructure and industry.
• Automation presents an interesting opportunity here since it provides a means to transform agriculture.
• Automation has the capacity of replacing a group of farmers over a period of time which cannot individually replace.
• Only 10 per cent farmers in India own land.
• It easier to allot land to a smaller farming population and teach them how to use automated machines to get higher, more consistent yields in conjunction with other improved farming practices.
• Automation provides a means to transform agriculture.
• But freeing of agricultural labour should be done only after preparing adequate infrastructure to with the help of automation to absorb this labour.
• This transition cannot be left to the mercies of the market.
• Recent experiments at re-skilling have demonstrated the inadequacy of infrastructure to absorb labour.
• Example of public works that would provide the opportunity to implement automation – affordable housing, Mass renewable energy generation etc.
• Technologies like 3-D printing could become a catalyst for getting the sort of productivity needed for such ambitious projects.
• The domain of distribution and management can be greatly benefited through automation in a country like India.
• Machine learning processes can be used for enhancing logistics and operations.

8. What are the benefits that can be derived from a better distribution and management system?

• Worker-run cooperatives to become efficient enough to compete against traditional corporate structures, allowing the government to incentivize such formations, in turn increasing worker prosperity.
• AI-based cooperatives can be the bedrock of a more just economy.
• It will make bound governmental agencies to use AI to run PSUs better.
• Structures of governance could be strengthened and improved with AI: example – statistical analysis can be used to detect malpractices, fraud, and corruption.

9. What is being currently offered by AI?

• AI is being used to combat propaganda and spurious news.
• Computational linguistics can be used to preserve the vast cultural heritage of our marginalized peoples.
• Could be used in the understaffed but vital agencies.

10. How will the society be impacted?

• AI will affect social relation depending on who wields it and how.
• There is a demand for an education policy that recognizes the paramountcy of quality education in an age of automation.
• Education must be free, universal, and of high quality in a future economy dominated by AI.
• AI can be used to protect the interest of our labour force.
• It can unite the goals of development and public prosperity.