Industry Leaders Voice Support For Equitable AI, Urge For Global Partnerships
As artificial Intelligence (AI) changes the world’s paradigm, ‘Equitable AI’ is gaining traction among businesses, creating ethical working space while supporting growth of opportunities. This new term refers to AI technologies that humans have intentionally designed, developed and implemented for an equitable outcome for all.
This topic of Equitable AI was addressed by prominent industry leaders and experts at the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) Summit 2023 in New Delhi on Tuesday.
Speaking on these lines John Ashley, Director of Nvidia AI Technology Centres underlined the GPU company’s long-term focus on democratising AI. He said Nvidia is aiming to build software that would be available to all. "We want to reach a broader ecosystem," Ashley added.
Ashley said for an equitable AI, working in collaboration is important. Speaking on Nvidia’s partnership with Google and Microsoft, he underlined that it is important to work in partnership to improve research and train large language models.
This requires a lot of computing, large data, policymakers, users and educators to make applications real, Ashley explained.
On collaborative approach, Harsh Dhand, Head, APAC Google Research and AI Partnerships Google said, "I am leading the APAC initiative and make sure that my team generates, collects and curates the data in the region all across."
Dhand said India being an epicentre of Southeast Asia, it plays an important role in ensuring that data is equitable not just in terms of quantity but also in nuanced perspectives across all domains.
"So, we are ensuring that regional LLM is not just limited to Google, but is for the entire ecosystem, the startups and others that use data for training."
Dhand said, "Our efforts are in terms of making sure that the data is open source and accessible to everyone."
Further, Gabriela Ramos, Assistant Director-General (ADG) for Social and Human Sciences at UNESCO shared UNESCO's efforts for equitable AI. She said, "We are working with the government to ensure that they build up their capacities to manage and steer the advanced technologies because technology is used in every sector and so a need for its ethical governance is important."
Ramos underlined the need for a legislative framework and certainty is a must and the more this is global and not fragmented through jurisdiction, the better it will be for the companies.
Reflecting on the shared thoughts, Vilas Dhar, President and Trustee at Patrick J McGovern Foundation said, "Hearing the incredible possibilities of what AI will do, I would reflect on the struggling foundation."
Dhar added, "We need to change the societal framework to allow these technologies to be used in ways that solve the problems of many, rather than the few and the privileged. The need is to democratise AI, the data and computing."
Echoing on the topic, Anna Makanju, Vice President of Global Affairs at Open AI said "One of the things that my team is most focused on is how to engage organisations that are solving specific issues in communities because we understand that they're the only ones that understand the specific challenges faced by communities and that we want to deliver that solution in a way that considers those."
