India is metamorphosing from AI adopter to AI leader

A few of my not-so-well-wishers—they are legion—wanted this letter written by ChatGPT, which has become synonymous with artificial intelligence (AI) in writing and is being used in several journalistic newsrooms.

It was a tempting thought: Let AI write the editor’s letter in an AI special issue. Until I stumbled upon Madam Suman. Reports say the average attendance at a school near Jhansi, in Uttar Pradesh, has increased from 60 to 65 percent to 95 percent since Madam Suman joined its faculty. The humanoid teacher answers questions on a range of topics, never scolds her pupils, and occasionally cracks jokes. It is basic tech, a mannequin fitted with AI, developed by Mohanlal Suman, who is one of the seven human teachers at the school.

Time will tell how strong the correlation is between curiosity and attendance. But Madam Suman is someone (something?) I wanted to write about with my own hands, especially after a report in The Times of India narrated its appeal for the school’s 130 students. They just can’t have enough of her (it?).

AI development in India is not just about curiosities. Sarvam AI’s latest model can power chatbots and virtual assistants, translate from English into Indian languages, and has the ability to answer mathematics and science questions, including JEE-level questions, in Hindi. As Naandika Tripathi reports, felicity with Indian languages and linguistic nuances, and understanding of the cultural context and local datasets is critical and praiseworthy in a diverse country like ours. However, Sarvam also attracted scepticism from competitors who questioned its reliance on Mistral, a French open-source model. The debate affirms the country’s rise as a hotbed of AI-related activity as it morphs from AI adopter into AI leader—which gets underlined by the dollars flowing into companies leveraging AI.

Back to Madam Suman, the keenness of my desire to feel the words I write may be of little relevance to my employers, who might have wanted me to finish off this letter in a few seconds, instead of the usual half an hour it takes me (this one took longer because I forgot my reading glasses at home—a non-issue for AI). Which is why the impact of AI on jobs is one of the hottest debates raging around the world. Which is not the only concern about the most disruptive technology to emerge in human history.