Tech Leaders’ Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence: Insights from N Chandrasekaran, Arvind Krishna, and Brad Smith
Globally, there are two perspectives on artificial intelligence. On one hand, it presents a significant opportunity to enhance productivity in various human endeavors. On the other hand, there is concern that this emerging technology could harm humanity and potentially lead to its extinction. Meanwhile, developers find themselves in a dilemma as they explore the potential of AI and seek to capitalize on it for financial gain. Against this backdrop, numerous technology leaders have convened in New Delhi to participate in the B20 Summit India 2023, organized by CII.
Technology leaders have spoken at length on Friday, and the content of their speeches shows that they believe artificial intelligence can increase productivity, but they have urged policymakers that the development of artificial intelligence must be done responsibly.
Arvind Krishna
IBM Chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna said AI can free people to do more productive work and reduce costs for businesses.
The impact of artificial intelligence on technicians can be phenomenal. He said coding can be improved by about 60 percent using AI assistance.
“Within IBM, we think about 20 percent of the total activity, which we call low-level cognitive work, about 30 percent can be made easily productive with AI. That frees up more people to do more value-added work. It’s not that there aren’t jobs. If you have there’s productivity, you can get a lot more customers. You can offer things at a lower price,” Krishna said.
“Underneath that, there’s a bunch of activities, I’ll call them more mundane, that could be automated, but they’re hard to do. Whether it’s promoting people or evaluating people, AI can start doing those. In our case, we do 90 percent of it through AI,” Krishna said.
He said that it takes people with these incredible skills to actually invent the basic models, the large language models, and build the computing infrastructure.
Krishna added a glimpse of the country’s reality: “We are happy to have them, but we don’t need everyone else”.
By Shantanu Narayen
Speaking about India, Adobe Chairman and CEO Shantanu Narayen said that with 46% of global digital payments, 1 billion people with Aadhaar cards and 850 million smartphone and internet users, India offers a huge opportunity to be at the forefront of AI.
Narayen lavished praise on what India had achieved as a country in the field of technology.
“I am a huge fan of the digital infrastructure India is building… it is infrastructure, it is know-how, technology, innovation and entrepreneurship,” Narayen told PTI.
N Chandrasekaran
Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran said India and many countries in the Global South are struggling to provide services to their citizens.
“An estimated 300 million do not have access to services such as healthcare, education and sometimes banking. On the other hand, we have a lot of people looking for work. 10-12 million people enter the workforce every year. We have to solve both problems. The only way to solve these problems is to take deploying technology on a scale that has never been done before,” Chandrasekaran said.
He said that over the past 10 years, India has adopted a digital infrastructure that has enabled it to provide services at scale with ease.
“We need to figure out a way to embrace AI so that we can innovate faster and protect privacy,” Chandrasekaran said.
Brad Smith
Microsoft chairman and vice president Brad Smith said that wherever he goes, people say that the mistakes made with social media should not be repeated in the development of artificial intelligence.
“I think it’s fair to say that everyone, not just the companies involved, for example the biggest social media sites, got maybe a little too euphoric about the good that social media brings to the world without thinking about the risks,” Smith said.
He said the Arab Spring saw another side of social media and it was different around the time of the 2016 US presidential election.
“We need to be excited about the opportunity, but thoughtful, maybe even concerned about the downside, and we need to build guardrails from the ground up as industry, as business and as governments and nations,” Smith said.
