India must stay ahead in critical technologies like AI, says CEA Nageswaran

New Delhi: Chief economic adviser (CEA) V Anantha Nageswaran Thursday underscored the need for India to stay on top of critical technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), to stay ahead of the curve.

He pitched for government-industry collaborations to harness the AI potential, contending that a country that treats technology as fate will end up being shaped by it, but one that treats it as a tool will shape it instead.

"India must be in the second group-not a passive recipient of what the technology does to us, but an active author of what we do with it," Nageswaran said at a Confederation of Indian Industry event.


The CEA dwelt upon both the constructive and disruptive potential of AI to sensitise and prepare stakeholders for opportunities and risks.

If the value of an enterprise rests only on doing simple, routine and repetitive tasks at low cost, then that value is under threat, he said.

"We should not pretend otherwise. To pretend so would be to fail the very people we are trying to protect," Nageswaran said.

But AI does not build, deploy or govern itself and requires manpower to do so, he said, from the design, testing and training stage to eventual deployment and accountability.

All such works are expanding and not shrinking, he said, stressing that AI does threaten certain routine jobs but it also creates scope for meaningful employment. India must, therefore, skill its people accordingly to take advantage of AI. Risk is there but it doesn't have to be destiny. "Resilience is not something that a society is handed; it is something that a society builds," he said.