The Moral Arc of Artificial Intelligence
If someone made a Dan-Brown-writing-style doppelganger, but for thrillers in the realm of artificial intelligence, then that person would look very much like Guy Morris. Heck, it would exactly be Guy Morris, the hugely popular writer of fast-paced AI-inspired political mysteries. In one of his bestsellers, ‘Swarm’, Morris writes succinctly about the intersections between politics, international intrigue, and of course, artificial intelligence.
"I mean, it’s not that we lack the technology or the resources to solve every one of the world’s problems, but we lack the political and moral will to prioritise people over profit, or people over power. We lack a worldwide spiritual wellness or a mutual love for others beyond our own tribe or religion, a humanity without racism or bigotry. Our prosperity has morphed into a ravenous, greedy cancer that transforms even basic life needs into cradle-to-grave profit centres and corporate dynasties. Even worse, the average person has little control or real voice. Governments, technologies, and innovations systemically move wealth upward but do little or nothing to eliminate poverty or ignorance overall. At what point in time does humanity get honest with ourselves and have an intervention?"
There is a case — and it is a fairly large one — for the moral and human applications of AI. After all, what’s the point of tech if it does not advance humanity, in both of its meanings? This is the idea behind Takshashila’s latest discussion document on ‘AI Governance’.
While global AI governance efforts primarily focus on ethics and safety, it is crucial to consider AI governance from a national interest perspective. This involves examining how AI adoption can help humans flourish, strengthen democracy, and promote a stable global order. It also looks at the need for sustainable practices in AI adoption and the importance of ensuring competition in the AI ecosystem. These considerations need to be examined across these different stages of the AI supply chain — data, computation, model, and application — to envision the desired outcomes at each stage.
Five of our leading scholars have authored a deeply researched analysis of what lies ahead, and what must our priorities be.
They are clear, in fact, according to Nitin Pai, Bharath Reddy, Sridhar Krishna, Satya Sahu, and Rijesh Panicker. They are, in no particular order: Human Flourishing, Democracy, Stable Global Order, Competition and Planetary Sustainability.
The five authors explain in detail what each of these values entail, and how India can utilise the principles of AI to achieve meaningful outcomes in each of them.
For instance,
“AI can greatly improve outcomes in education, healthcare, and governance. These improvements can be particularly impactful in countries with limited state capacity, a common situation in many low-income countries. Effectively designing and implementing public policies over extended periods is a daunting challenge, but AI can augment state capacity to achieve the desired outcomes in these areas. The gains from AI can be similar to the rapid improvement in financial inclusion seen with the adoption of digital public infrastructure such as the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) in India, which allowed leapfrogging by several decades.”
Of course, leading technologists and business people from around the world — including two of the sector’s biggest newsmakers Sam Altman and Elon Musk — have created a bit of a doomsday scenario if AI is not regulated, the real risk could be a concentration of market power and a lack of accountability.
No matter what your concern is, this document looks at the larger picture for India from a national interest perspective. That, in fact, would be a good starting point for anyone in AI policymaking.
Living on the Edge
Tucked into a small, but not-so-dark corner of NASA’s official website is a page that lists a bibliography of titles on human spaceflight and human colonisation of space. One of the books listed is the landmark ‘The High Frontier: Human Colonies in Space’ by Gerard K O’Neill. It is an engaging read, of course, but this bit stands out:
“A nonindustrial Earth with a population of perhaps one billion people could be far more beautiful than it is now. Tourism from space could be a major industry, and would serve as a strong incentive to enlarge existing parks, create new ones, and restore historical sights. The tourists, coming from a nearly pollution-free environment, would be rather intolerant of Earth's dirt and noise, and that too would encourage cleaning up the remaining sources of pollutants here. Similar forces have had a strong beneficial effect on tourist centers in Europe and the United States during the past twenty years. The vision of an industry free, pastoral Earth, with many of its spectacular scenic areas reverting to wilderness, with bird and animal populations increasing in number, and with a relatively small, affluent human population, is far more attractive to me than the alternative of a rigidly controlled world whose people tread precariously the narrow path of a steady-state society. If the humanisation of space occurs, the vision could be made real.”
Indeed, space colonisation is first and foremost humanisation of space. It is this, and other frontier ideas that our colleague Aditya Ramanathan writes about in his latest discussion document on human spaceflight, India’s goals and its global ambitions.
As Adtiya summarises:
“India has laid out its ambition to operate a space station by 2035 and send an Indian to the Moon by 2040. To achieve these goals, India will need to move away from its traditional approaches and seek out international cooperation and commercial opportunities more actively. India must embed ISRO programmes such as the Gaganyaan human spaceflight project into the effort to build a commercially sustainable low-Earth orbit economy. It must also join the Artemis lunar exploration programme to accelerate its journey to putting a person on the Moon.”
This is not fantasy; this is official policy. On 17 October 2023, Prime Minister Narendra Modi set deadlines for two ambitious goals for India’s human spaceflight endeavours. Addressing officials from the Department of Space (DoS), PM Modi said India should have a “Bharatiya Antariksha Station” or Indian Space Station in orbit by 2035 and send the first Indian to the Moon by 2040. India’s space programme has traditionally been focused on space applications and is known for its frugality. However, starting in 2018, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) began working on the Gaganyaan human spaceflight programme and later revealed that it had plans for a space station.
Admittedly, there are both challenges and opportunities. Based on the limited information available in the public domain, India appears to be following a human spaceflight path similar to China’s. The steps include perfecting orbital human spaceflight, building one or more small space stations before graduating to a larger modular outpost, and pursuing uncrewed lunar sample return missions to gain some of the experience needed to send people to the Moon.
However, China’s circumstances are very different from India’s. For one, China’s space budget is much higher, estimated at about $12 billion in 2022, compared to ISRO’s budget estimate of $1.64 billion in the financial year 2022-23. While these figures may not be exactly comparable, they indicate the differences in budgetary support available for ambitious space missions.
Two, China has a single spacefaring partner: Russia. While Russia’s Roscosmos has formidable capabilities and experience, it remains financially constrained and lacks easy access to foreign technology. For China, independent development of its space programme is more a necessity than a choice. On the other hand, India not only has a history of partnering with Roscosmos, but is also witnessing growing cooperation with NASA, JAXA, and the ESA. If divisions between China and other states heighten in the coming decade, the incentive for cooperation will only increase.
You can read the full paper here.
We need jobs, baby!
In his perceptive column on India’s labour force participation rate (LFPR) and the various protectionist measures that state governments want to implement to generate local employment, Anupam Manur cites two important pieces of data. One, India’s unemployment rate, according to the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy, is as high as 10.5%, and India’s LFPR is an abysmal 39.5%.
In other words, only roughly 400 million out of 1.4 billion people are either looking for a job or already have a job. Among other factors, the lack of job opportunities drives people out of the labour force.
Anupam says:
“Of the different freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution – political, religious, personal (speech), and economic – the last one is the most readily trampled upon by the state with carefree abandon. The Indian State will interfere in pricing decisions, inputs, hiring and firing, and all other aspects of running a business. It equally denies the freedom of individuals to choose a job in any part of the country.”
It is a complex problem, and certainly not one that can be wished away by populist legislation.
You can read Anupam’s column here.
Trump’s Rhetoric Was Funny, Now It’s Plain Dangerous
In his fortnightly column for The Free Press Journal, Takshashila’s Sachin Kalbag writes about how former US President Donald Trump has upped his rhetoric to a level that reminds many of vile Nazi epithets used for the Jewish community in Germany in the 1930s, including ‘vermin’. The ‘othering’ project that began during his presidency has gone full steam ahead as Candidate Trump aspires for a second term as President Trump in 2024.
To quote Sachin:
“Trump has been publicly announcing his plans for his possible second term as President. One, he will use the Justice Department to go after his political adversaries. Two, he intends to carry out an extreme immigration crackdown including sweeping nationwide raids, giant camps and mass deportations. Three, his staff has already begun screening thousands of potential candidates for their ideological leanings to appoint them to key government posts so that power can be centralised at the White House. In a recent speech, he said, “We pledge to root out communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” ‘Vermin’ is the same vile epithet the Nazis used to describe Jews in the 1930s and we all know what that led to.”
Read his full column here.
Wait, There’s More
General Prakash Menon writes on the parallels between the India-Pakistan conflict and the Israel-Hamas full-scale war. The lesson, he says, is to not fight terrorism by force alone. You can read his perceptive piece here.
Anushka Saxena has a new column out on China’s new state secrets law. The last time it was amended was in 2010. The draft amendment, the first changes submitted for review since the State Secrets Law was amended in 2010, proposes to expand the law from 53 articles to 62 articles. The amendments include provisions for new mechanisms of accountability, new goals to fulfil through the conduct of secrecy work, and new ways to expand awareness of such work. Read her piece here.
India's Electric Vehicle ecosystem has grown remarkably in the last few years. However, questions arise about the sustainability of this growth and potential challenges. Our favourite All Things Policy episode this week is the one where Sarthak Pradhan engages in conversation with Manish Bhandari and Ashwin Kak, both current students of Takshashila's 48-week Post Graduate Programme in Public Policy, where they share their insights on the state of affairs in India's Electric Vehicle sector. Listen to the discussion here.
We have been waxing eloquent on Pranay Kotasthane and Abhiram Manchi's new book ‘When The Chips Are Down’. They have done a lively podcast on their new book. As nations jockey for geopolitical dominance, in addition to traditional factors such as military capabilities and economic power, technological prowess has become another, and perhaps most critical factor. Control over the manufacture and availability of the most advanced semiconductors is a key element of geopolitical security and strategic autonomy. Listen to the episode here.
Applications for GCPP Jan’24 are Open
Hear from our alumnus, Divya Pinge, on her experience and takeaways from the Graduate Certificate in Public Policy (GCPP) - Tech Policy programme. Applications for the upcoming January 2024 cohort are now open.
That’s all for this week. Take care!