Wake up to AI opportunity

Niti Aayog's strategy paper on Artificial Intelligence (AI), which outlines the opportunities offered by this rising technology and the challenges posed by it, calls for special attention from governments and policymakers. The endeavour of Artificial Intelligence is the development of intelligence in machines, either by feeding into them capability for specialised tasks or, increasingly, giving them the capability, such as sensors and large amounts of data, to learn on their own, called Machine Learning. The Niti Aayog paper presents the need to create a favourable AI ecosystem in India and identifies the sectors that need to be focused on, like agriculture, education, healthcare, infrastructure and transport. The economic rewards and social benefits will be great, as will be the disruptions caused by AI. The paper estimates that AI might account for about $1 trillion, or about 15% of GDP, by 2035.