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Nobel laureate Kailash Satyarthi has laid out his vision for the future development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) amid a deepening race between companies and nations to dominate the technology. In an exclusive conversation with HT, Satyarthi spoke about a new framework for the future of the technology, which he calls Compassionate AI. Edited excerpts:
You’ve been in San Francisco meeting with technology companies and universities about AI. Could you start us off by talking about what your ideas have been on compassionate AI?
AI is the talk of the town nowadays. Everyone who is in politics or in business or in other sectors of life, including in schools, colleges, universities, people are talking about AI. I realize that the world is divided in two. There is some gray area, but quite a large number of people are frightened when these exposes come, like the HuggingFace attack we saw recently. All these things are frightening. So many people think that this is very serious, very risky. So they are against AI in that way, due to this fear. But there are a larger number of people like governments, companies who embrace AI like a magic wand. They believe it is going to solve all the problems of the world, and without AI, we cannot think, we cannot write. We cannot give our speeches. We cannot do anything. So they are very very obsessed with AI. But I have brought a third dimension: the idea of compassionate AI.
Also Read: Integrate human values into technology and governance: Satyarthi
Recently, there was a United Nations Summit on AI on technology in Geneva entitled “AI for Good”. So I was invited there as a keynote speaker in the inaugural ceremony, and then I asked this question: you say AI for good, but good for whom? Are these people the invisible people who may not be using your product, who may not be your customer? The second thing is that the algorithms are biased, and we have seen the results of it. Biased means the mindset, the biases of engineers is put into it, as I said, and that is resulting in larger harms. My solution was that compassion should be the principle in designing, development, and deployment, and that should flow everywhere. I’ve met dozens, maybe hundreds of engineers and scientists and developers and deployers and some of the companies’ investors in the last three days. My proposal to them was that how many of your engineers, code writers and developers have ever met those people whom you are talking to about? You are talking about bringing good in the lives of billions of people in the world. Have you ever seen them? Have you ever met with them? So my proposal is to invite these engineers to go and live for some time in Africa, in South Asia, in Latin America, in the villages, in rural communities, and sit with them and try to understand what their problems are.
The view of AI and many of the companies developing it has turned sharply negative among sections in the United States, where you are now. How are you seeing this popular revolt?
To be clear, I believe AI is a reality. The speed in the sector’s development is a reality, the competition is a reality and the damages caused is also a reality. This cannot be avoided. But the question is whether worry, fear and opposition are the answers to our problems. We have to try to face this and use this technology for the good of humanity. Addressing those real risks and fears is the real question. It’s not actually a bad thing that people are worried. Because it will lead to creative thinking and new ideas on how to handle these problems. Compassionate AI is one of those ideas.
What has the reaction been to your proposals?
It’s been tremendous, and it began from the AI summit in Geneva in July, when I brought this idea of compassionate AI. Dozens of companies and the heads of state of two countries - one prime minister and one president - approached me just there in the hall, in the room, when I finished my talk, and called it a great idea. Yesterday, I was in Stanford and before that I was also talking to engineers at the SAP Institute. Similarly, some local groups and universities organized events with developers, engineers, investors, and so on, and that is being resonated so well because it’s very practical. It is not preaching. It is not just talking of humanity and morality. I am trying to bring the engineering solution of this deep engineering problem.
Have you also spoken to those companies that are really at the forefront of developing this technology such as Anthropic, OpenAI and Google? How was your idea perceived by them?
I’m not going to share that at this point of time. But you can imagine that in my life of fighting against child labor, I have been meeting and trying to influence the top levels of government and society to change global policies. I have been successful in bringing some international laws, treaties and policies changing the whole narrative of business where child labor was involved including with the biggest companies of the world - chocolate companies, carpet companies, football and sport goods companies. So I am very much involved with this but I am not going to share anything at this stage.
You’ve spent a career focusing on ending child labour in India and globally. One of the concerns with AI is the impact it could have by raising unemployment and increasing inequality globally. Both of these things might worsen the problem of child labour. Does AI risk undoing a lot of the progress you’ve made? What do you think about the broader risks AI poses?
For me, the biggest threat to humanity is who is going to control whom? Will humans control machines or will machines control human decisions? These technologies are in the control of eight or nine companies whose profits and whose wealth is more than the GDP of countries. We talk about how India is trying to become a $5 trillion economy, but some of these companies have already achieved more than that. So they are very powerful companies. So, how to democratize data? How to democratize technology? These are big questions. But the threats are bigger because humanity itself is under stake. Humanity itself is under risk, and that risk has to be addressed now, not with fear, not with negative reactions, not with being frightened about it, but by using the human conscience to solve these problems with wisdom and intelligence.
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