‘AI Can Have the Same Impact as Aadhaar, UPI,’ says Nandan Nilekani

In a recent interview, Nandan Nilekani, co-founder and non-executive chairman of Infosys, said how India benefited hugely from DPI, Aadhar, and UPI, AI can have similar transformation possibilities. “AI is very powerful technology, but it’s a technology like anything else,” said Nilekani, adding that AI needs to be used with appropriate safety and guardrails. 

He explains that if we apply AI at a population scale, India can have an even bigger impact. “We call this DPI to the power of AI,” added Nilekani, explaining that India can take DPI to the next level with AI. 

“You can have AI infrastructure to create data for AI and you can apply AI along with existing DPIs to amplify education or health,” said Nilekani. 

“Technology is only as good as it is used and we believe that large language models will be commodities,” said Nilekani, adding that everyday there is a new announcement about people spending money and building AI models. “How do we apply them makes the difference and that is where India’s focus I believe should be.”

Nilekani also added that the fear of AI replacing jobs is unfounded. “AI will hugely automate and reduce jobs, but that’s a fear we should take into account. Because anytime a new technology comes, some jobs will go but new jobs will come,” he explained, while also adding that there might be a period where job loss is more than job gain, but India has to use AI to amplify services to people in healthcare and education. 

Giving the example of Kisan-eMitra chatbot, Nilekani explained that AI is helping farmers in various ways. He believes that India will particularly benefit from AI in Indic languages. 

Praising Bhashini and AI4Bharat, Nilekani said that building open tools for 22 Indian languages and making them available as public good is a very good example of AI as a public good.