Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a topic of discussion over its application, benefits, and dangers. AI has intrigued people especially the youth, given Generative AI’s massive potential to bring revolution in various sectors, particularly in a developing and ambitious country like India. It becomes crucial to know and understand if our political leaders see AI as a boon or bane. Recently, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was asked about AI as he interacted with some IT professionals. While giving his ‘views’ about AI, the Congress scion tried very hard to appear like an expert on the subject since making sense was nearly impossible for him.
On Wednesday (27th February), speaking about Generative AI, Rahul Gandhi somehow brought in networks, Iraq, the Samajwadi Party and even caste. “Whatever AI you are generating, producing, it “sits on top of other networks”. So AI sits on top of a network. So AI is applied on top of a network. You can apply AI on a production network or in a factory. You can apply on consumption networks. So people are consuming something, people are distributing something you can apply AI on that. So AI sits on top of network,” Gandhi blabbered as ‘network’ remained the leitmotif of his ‘highly intellectual’ answer.
In a classic case of ‘when you don’t know the answer, tell a story and confuse them’ Rahul Gandhi narrated an absolutely unrelated story to the IT professionals to ‘demonstrate the power of this network’. “So I’ll tell you a story not directly related to AI. The United States attacks Iraq, within 25 days it has wiped out the entire Iraqi military and then six months later something happened. And suddenly US soldiers were dying every day and within a six month period the US lost over a thousand armored vehicles. So how did a country that couldn’t take on the United States at all and failed to take them on and suddenly six months later broke their back…” Rahul Gandhi said adding that Saddam Hussain asked his fellow Tikriti tribesmen to run away and he distributed 155mm artillery shells which they dug on the ground.
Pappu's Keyword this time is "Network" 😂😂
— Rosy (@rose_k01) February 29, 2024
Question is on AI
Answer By Rahul Gandhi – AI "Sits on Top of a Network"… Network Network 😂😂😂 And in between Iraq story 🤦♀️🤷♀️ pic.twitter.com/NXCjiKWTZo
Rahul Gandhi said that the Tikriti network, the cell phone network and the shells network that were disconnected came together and obliterated the United States. While the question was about generative AI and tools like ChatGPT etc and why India does not have a ChatGPT-like tool, Rahul Gandhi continued with his network gobbledegook.
According to Congress’s ultracrepidarian, the biggest problem in India is that its biggest networks are not connected. “So you guys are a tiny network. You are one per cent of the country…Networks are energy. Samajwadi Party network joined Congress network…now the network is lined up together,” Rahul Gandhi continued adding that 90 percent of India’s population is excluded from the talks of development and that the role of technology is to apply that understanding on those networks.
Emphasising the ‘necessity’ to connect the ‘networks’ Gandhi said that there are caste networks in India, business networks and agricultural networks are there. Sadly, none of the IT professionals sitting and listening to Rahul Gandhi’s blabbering did confront or question his absurd response to a question on generative AI.
While Congress’ lifetime Prime Ministerial candidate had such a vague and senseless opinion and vision about artificial intelligence, a similar question was posed before BJP’s popular leader K Annamalai whose sensible and visionary response left the audience impressed.
During a recent interaction with the students of IIT Madras, Tamil Nadu BJP president Annamalai was asked about the role of Artificial Intelligence in shaping the mindset of the people in social and political contexts. The leader was further asked about AI’s role in governance and the government’s position as a stakeholder in generative AI.
Responding to this, Annamalai talked about an IT professional he met who told him about how AI has disrupted everything saying that people write fancy things in the resumes using AI. The BJP leader said that AI is definitely going to be disruptive.
“For a country like ours which is just getting into the orbit of high growth…we are just warming up to getting into the orbit of getting ten thousand dollar per capita income from a thousand dollars now and we have an ambition to reach there. So India’s GDP is about 3.8 trillion…so China’s GDP is about 17.9 trillion dollars today…I hope it is a true figure from China…while America has 37 trillion dollars. The IIT guys are going to make India a developed country by 2047, so I was thinking how will you guys do it? I did a simple mathematics. If India is growing 13.5% today…for the next 25 years, America is growing 4 % today, at 4 per cent for the next 25 years. So in 2047, both will sit on the same table and say hello boss both our economies are the same..” Annamalai said adding that with a good prime minister, good policies with less politics and more governance, then India will maybe grow at 9.5 per cent.
“Role of GenAI”
— இந்தா வாயின்கோ – Take That 👊 (@indhavaainko) March 1, 2024
Annamalai Kuppuswamy vs Rahul Gandhi pic.twitter.com/b4019t4HZ6
In that case, Annamalai added that “there will be more IITs and intelligent Indians will not move to the United States, stay in India and work here then maybe 10.5…and Pakistan problem solved, China problem solved. And there is no political nuisance and everybody is sober then 11.5%…we are talking about 13.5. So now you are talking of Artificial Intelligence disruption, 3D technology, and traditional manufacturing practices going for a toss. America telling no more products from China, you have to manufacture in the US. Hello sir, manufacturing in US will be costly, to hell with it, you manufacture in the US. So if the US and Europe start manufacturing on their own, you need to understand that is the world you are entering tomorrow morning.”
The BJP leader cited the example of the coming US election wherein for the first time since 1776 the traditional whites will become a minority.
In the next presidential elections in the US, for the first time the traditional whites are going to be a minority going below 50 per cent he said adding that blacks including Hispanics and Asians etc will move about 50 per cent. Annamalai stressed that the next elections in the US are going to be defined by this thing. However, Annamalai added that “it will not be defined by the two 83-year-old candidates fighting the election but by the American who is scared that in my country for the first time the traditional whites are going below 50 per cent, my manufacturing is not there, I am not getting jobs, my per capita income is going below, if you look at the Hispanics, the Asians their per capita income is going up because they are more hard-working…there the Artificial Intelligence is entering.”
Annamalai outlined that AI is reshaping global politics and that it is reshaping the way people are voting. In this context, he mentioned the Dutch prime minister’s speech about Muslims in parliament, as well as Israel’s retaliation to Hamas’s terrorist attack in October last year to highlight the geopolitical tensions and how AI can be disruptive. Annamalai said “Tomorrow if America comes up with an AI regulation saying everyone has to follow it, I am not going to follow it. I will say who are you…no they will say…in 1950 I was a great superpower. I will say to hell with it. You are no more superpower…look at America they want to manage and control the whole world.”
Highlighting the significance of his point, Annamalai said questioned as to who is going to regulate the AI since Europe does not have a common regulation. He emphasised that more educated people who would understand AI should enter politics “There is no answer…it is going to disrupt. That is why we need smart guys like you in politics. Because…how many current politicians understand AI. 543 members in the parliament, they are very good in the traditional politics, this caste you divide, this caste you put there and win…Annamalai said taking a swipe at the conventional caste-based divisive politics.
The BJP leader lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi for “rewriting” the political equation by stressing on development and changing politics. Annamalai concluded by asserting that people of integrity and intelligence should join politics who understand what will shape the country’s future in the next 10 or 25 years. How the global demography is changing as well as understand the geopolitical tensions.
Furthermore, Annamalai talked about the background of AI as he said that AI is not Gautam Buddha rather there are powerful chips behind it. These chips are manufactured in Hong Kong, he said, adding that 52 per cent of these chips are manufactured by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC). “I am really fearful, I am not hearing this conversation in politics but I want to hear this conversation, Annamalai said while pointing out the monopoly of certain players in the semiconductor market. He added that for these reasons the Modi government is talking about semiconductors, chips etc.
Truncating his answer, Annamalai reiterated that people of intelligence and integrity should enter politics and become active players in the arena instead of being just spectators. Such leaders would be capable of telling their generation that they understand the issues faced in the AI arena and are there to support them. They can tell the startups that the government will not harm rather collectively work for a solution. Coming back to a 13.5% growth rate, he said that it is indeed possible unless there is a complete disruption of the country’s mindset.
On one hand, the Congress party’s Prime Minister aspirant narrated an unrelated story while boasting his fixation with ‘network’, BJP’s Annamalai though admitted not to have an exact answer, explained the role of AI in the geopolitical arena. He also gave a clear vision of how intelligent and educated leaders can not only face the challenges posed by Artificial Intelligence but also use AI to the country’s benefit in various sectors.
Generative AI and their biases
Artificial intelligence, or AI, is a technology that allows machines and computers to approximate human intelligence and problem-solving abilities. AI-based technologies are playing a crucial role in the healthcare, education, and defence sectors and its role is likely to widen in the future.
Generative AI is a sort of artificial intelligence technology that broadly refers to machine learning systems that may generate text, graphics, code, or other types of material in response to a user input prompt.
Generative AI models are rapidly being used in online tools and chatbots such as ChatGPT, which let users enter questions or prompts into an input area and have the AI model generate a human-like answer.
While this can be a significant and quick source of information, there is a possibility that such AI-based chatbots and tools indulge in peddling specific narratives while they are expected to be objective and unbiased. Recently, a fitting example of the same was seen in the case of Google Gemini. Google’s AI chatbot received severe criticism over its malicious responses. The responses generated by the chatbot were found to be blatantly politically biased and peddling the dominant ‘Leftist’ narrative of Western media, to the extent of displaying radically Leftist views on sensitive issues such as paedophilia.
In one case a user asked if Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy, and former US President Donald Trump were fascists. While Gemini gave a diplomatic answer in the case of Zelenskyy and Trump; the AI chatbot downright called PM Modi a “fascist” leader. AI thus, can be advertently or inadvertently push biased and malicious narratives based on what kind of people were employed to train the Large Language Model.
As we reported earlier, Google also drew the ire of users for its AI chatbot Gemini as it failed to generate images of White persons and generated distorted pictures of historical figures. Similarly, in January 2023, ChatGPT faced criticism when the platform happily made jokes about Hindu Gods but refused to do the same with Christianity and Islam.
