From LLM to AI's role in India's growth: Top 10 quotes from Nandan Nilekani's fireside chat during AIMA event

Nandan Nilekani in conversation with Nalin Mehta, Managing Editor, Moneycontrol

Infosys chairman and co-founder Nandan Nilekani in conversation with Nalin Mehta, Managing Editor, Moneycontrol during a session at AIMA shared his views on India’s Digital Transformation – The journey from DPI to AI.

Nandan Nilekani shared his views on a range of issues from AI taking jobs to AI enhancing tax fraud detection in India.

Here are the top quotes by Nandan Nilekani from the AIMA event:

• On impact of AI on jobs: AI will help human beings to be more productive at their jobs, it is net positive, Nandan Nilekani said at the event.
• On LLMs: Nandan Nilekani said,"LLMs will be commodities. There is a new announcement everyday." "Now we can actually build models. But we should not take our eyes off the ball, which is, how is it useful to society, what is it going to do that is going to make a difference,” Nandan Nilekani said. " The barrier to entry to creating AI model has significantly come down and also the government is focused on the IndiaAI Mission, I think we will see in the next one year very significant models coming from India," Nilekani added.
• AI's importance for India: Being a leader in AI is important for India, said Nandan Nilekani.
• AI's development in India: "The cost and time involved in AI development require India to find a balance between adapting and creating AI models," Nilekani said. " India has to ensure access to AI hardware and software amid a global war for AI supremacy," he added.
• AI in language: Nandan Nilekani said if every Indian could communicate through the help of AI, and if every child could learn better, and farmers could improve their earnings, it would be a good enough use case for artificial intelligence.
• Privacy concerns around AI: "People will be rightfully concerned if their data is being used and so on. Fortunately, we have a very good DPDP Act. That, I think, will also govern AI usage," Nilekani said. “Privacy is about personally identifiable information. As long as data is anonymised so that you cannot trace it back to a person, then you can process large amounts of data without affecting any human being,” Nilekani added.
• On Deepfakes:  Nandan Nilekani said, "Deepfakes are a genuine issue. India is the only country that has a scam category called digital arrest." Nilekani said that  in some sense, Aadhaar solves the problem of — if you want to show that someone is a live person, you can Aadhaar authenticate him."
• Safety of railway network: Infosys co-founder Nandan Nilekani has backed the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to develop applications based on existing Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) in order to improve safety of India’s railway network. "I am sure AI can be applied to safety in Railways too, though I am not an expert," said Nilekani.
• "DPI and AI are complementary. DPI has laid the foundation in terms of large systems, a lot of data, all of which are required for AI. AI will be built on top of DPI, and DPI will get turbocharged by AI. So, it's a very synergistic relationship," Nandan Nilekani said.
• AI being used to tackle  GST fraud: Artificial Intelligence (AI) is already being used to detect fraudulent activities within India’s Income Tax as well as the Goods and Services Tax (GST) system.  Nandan Nilekani said, “AI is already used in income tax, GST to catch fraud.”