New Delhi Artificial Intelligence (AI) deployment across all sectors in India will replace a large number of repetitive jobs with new jobs that require more human intelligence.
Speaking during the CEO Panel Discussion at the Mint AI Summit, CEOs and industry veterans agreed that the industry will need to upskill workers as automation and AI emerges.
The panel included Ajay Choudhary, founder member of HCL Technologies Limited; Nitin Chugh, Deputy Managing Director and Head of Digital Banking at State Bank of India; Geeta Manjunath, Founder and CEO of Niramai Health Analytics; and Dilipkumar Khandelwal, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Deutsche Bank India.
The panel was moderated by Shrutijit KK, editor-in-chief of Mint.
“It (loss of jobs for automation) is going to happen, yes. But more jobs will come. Someone also has to work behind the AI. To become a superpower, we need to create people to run AI,” Chowdhury said.
Khandelwal agreed, adding that the subjects that humans run or do will “need a kind of upskilling”, and that “humans will be pushed and pushed forward”, which is the big challenge today.
According to Manjunath, AI can bridge the gap between healthcare in urban and rural infrastructure.
“In the urban ecosystem, patients come to specialist doctors. The shortcomings of rural infrastructure were exposed through COVID-19. AI as a helpful tool can save doctors time through mundane analysis, leaving only the final decision up to the human and improving productivity. AI can help make healthcare workers smarter in rural areas.”
According to Chugh, a similar impact is expected in the financial sector. “Eventually, there will be a digital divide. Some people will have access based on digital literacy, but others will have phones but don’t know what to do. This is where voice solutions will help bridge the divide. Users will need AI on the edge, and banks today are building voice solutions for those who are not literate,” Chugh said.
According to the panelists, AI can also have an impact on various other aspects of society.
Choudhary said the education system would need to adopt AI and India would need the right quality and number of people for the AI industry to become a superpower.
“It’s all about the right quality and number of people – which is a lacking area today. Thus, what we need to do is incorporate AI into every education curriculum we can think of – regardless Be it about creating or using algorithms. We need all parts of our education system to adopt AI.”
Khandelwal said that while there has been a boom in software products made in India in the last five to six years, the US remains the biggest market for it.
“If India is to retain this talent, you have to have investments and markets that make it easy for people to sell. Market can be created only when awareness is created apart from education.