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India’s AI opportunity is real, says OpenAI's chief economist
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00:00Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the India Today AI Summit, which is being held against the backdrop of the AI
00:09Impact Summit being held here in New Delhi.
00:13The first time a summit of this proportion in the AI world is taking place in the global south.
00:20So it's a good moment to meet someone who's been part, an intrinsic part of the AI revolution taking place
00:27around us.
00:27Please welcome our speaker, Dr. Aaron Rani Chatterjee, Chief Economist of OpenAI.
00:38Rani, welcome.
00:40Just wanted to, in the first instance, ask the big question that's often asked at the moment.
00:48What we are seeing around us, is it a bubble or is it the real thing?
00:53What we are seeing around in India, is it hype or is there substance to the India story when it
01:00comes to AI?
01:02Well, first of all, I just want to say thank you for having me.
01:05It's great to see all the folks in the audience.
01:07This is an impressive event.
01:09When you think about the number of people who have come to India to exchange ideas about AI, how India
01:15has become the center of this discussion.
01:17I go to a lot of these kinds of events and it gives me a lot of pride as a
01:21person of Indian heritage to come back to India and do this event.
01:24I think it's for real when it comes to AI.
01:27You know, I'm an economist, so I spent a lot of my career studying prior economic recessions and bubbles and
01:33trends and new technologies.
01:34And I've looked at everything from the printing press to the semiconductor to the internet.
01:39AI is real.
01:40You're seeing users around the world adopt these tools and get real value out of them.
01:44That's different than some of the other technological trends in the past.
01:47We've reached 900 million weekly active users and we have 100 million weekly active users here in India.
01:53That's real value.
01:54There's a million businesses that are our customers and obviously others using other tools as well.
02:00That's real value.
02:01And there's billions of dollars of revenue that are being realized around AI.
02:04So I think in general, the story around AI globally is real.
02:07In India, I think it's as real as it is anywhere.
02:10I mean, we have many users here.
02:11It's one of our fastest growing markets.
02:13If you look at the applications in India, a lot around coding and data analysis, I see real work and
02:19real productivity happening in the Indian context.
02:22We've titled the session, Building India's AI Economy, Talent, Trade and Trust.
02:29I'll come to the three Ts one by one in a moment.
02:32But I just want to step back to ask you this, because the numbers suggest that the United States and
02:39China have dominated the first wave of this AI revolution.
02:4280% of the investment spent in infrastructure has been between these two countries and the rest of the world,
02:49including India, is seen to play catch-up.
02:51Would that be a fair way to look at where we stand today?
02:54Countries like India essentially at the moment are playing catch-up, because the foundation models and the investment in innovation
03:01and infrastructure, the United States and China are in another league.
03:05The arms race has been replaced in a way between these two superpowers as an AI race.
03:10So is India playing catch-up?
03:12Massive investments can be required in India to play in the intelligence age.
03:17But I do think we're still in the early innings of this.
03:20And I think in India, I see a recognition that you have to invest all around the stack.
03:23If you think about what the government's introducing, it's five different layers of the AI stack, including infrastructure.
03:28So that is going to be required.
03:30But I also think India has a lot of advantages.
03:32When you think about the over one million STEM graduates, engineering graduates every year who come out of Indian universities
03:38and institutions,
03:39these are people who are going to be more fluent with AI than the average person.
03:42They're going to build apps on top of our API.
03:45They're going to be able to use AI to get things done.
03:46So India has a lot of advantages and there's a lot of investment potential.
03:49So I think there's a lot of work to do but also a lot of reason for optimism.
03:52I'll come to those advantages in a moment because Sam Altman, OpenAI CEO, has said that India could emerge as
04:00a full-stack AI leader.
04:03And he says this just a couple of years after he called India hopeless at creating AI systems.
04:09So is this Sam Altman simply going with the wind?
04:12You're in India, say good things about India.
04:14Or is there a genuine belief on the part of the OpenAI leadership that, look, India is where the future
04:20is.
04:21We've got this large pool of highly trained engineers, a strong public digital infrastructure, and therefore India is this large
04:30market that OpenAI wants to now look at.
04:32I mean, look, I'm an economist so I look at the numbers and the numbers are real.
04:36I mean, second largest market with 100 million weekly active users, that's huge.
04:412.5x year-over-year growth.
04:43Big applications in coding and data analysis.
04:46All those things are real.
04:46I'm seeing that in the numbers that I look at every day, so both in the OpenAI perspective, but just
04:50for any analyst looking at the numbers, India and AI are going to go together, right?
04:55And you have to think about how you're going to invest, invest smartly, but it's the talent, it's the usage,
04:59it's the potential for investment in infrastructure.
05:01I think all those things are real, and that's why so many of us are here for this AI summit
05:05in India.
05:05Because in a paper you wrote, you note that Chad GPT adoption in India is growing 4x faster in low
05:13-income countries.
05:14Now, how does India leverage that to accelerate the digital economy?
05:19Because you probably, not necessarily as an economist, but as a corporation, are looking at it from a monetization point
05:25of view.
05:25There's a large market out there, let's make the maximum revenue.
05:29But how do you actually use AI to bring about a real transition or transformation in the digital economy?
05:37That's the challenge, isn't it?
05:38How are you going to apply AI beyond revenues to actually build for India?
05:44Well, yeah, I mean, India and low- and middle-income countries as a whole are growing faster than the
05:50richer countries, 4.4x more, as you point out.
05:54But why would OpenAI be interested in India beyond monetization?
05:58One question is our mission, right?
06:00One of the reasons I joined OpenAI is the mission to benefit all of humanity.
06:03One of the reasons we want to have a large number of free users is to fulfill that mission.
06:07We also introduced Chad GPT Go, right, to have a more affordable plan in India.
06:11So these are reasons that we think we want to play in India, right, even if the typical economic calculus
06:16might be different.
06:17I'll say the other thing is we're betting on growth.
06:19I mean, there's a lot of interesting applications here.
06:21When I see the things people can build with Codex in India and what I see at the universities among
06:26students,
06:26I know that that person I'm talking to is going to start a company tomorrow.
06:29And that's a company that OpenAI is going to want to be tracking as a business customer.
06:32So I think it's a question of the potential, but also what's happening today on the ground.
06:36And that makes sense.
06:37I do think you need applications that are native to the Indian context.
06:41I talked to folks all day about these different applications.
06:43One I'll focus on is agriculture.
06:45Agriculture is one of the areas we can get the highest return on investment if you have intelligence and support.
06:51Agricultural extension services is one way we've done that in the past in India and around the world.
06:55But most people never have access to a consultant or a person to provide that service.
06:59AI can put that kind of intelligence in a farmer's pocket now.
07:02These are the kinds of things you can do in India and scale.
07:05Some of those will be built on top of our API by Indian entrepreneurs and others can be provided by
07:09OpenAI.
07:09So I think there's tons of opportunities in agriculture, much less other areas, energy, finance, health care, retail.
07:15These are the kinds of things we'll be working on in India over the next couple of years.
07:17Can I be more specific about agriculture?
07:19And you can probably give me an example.
07:21Because one of India's problems has been 58% of our population dependent on agriculture contributes only 16%, 1.6
07:28% of national income.
07:31Agricultural productivity is going to be key.
07:32Tell me, how is AI, in concrete terms, how is OpenAI going to actually make the Indian farmer more productive?
07:39Again, is it hype?
07:41Or can you give me a real-life case example to show, look, this is what OpenAI can do for
07:47Indian agriculture?
07:48No, no, I mean, this can be real.
07:49And it's not just OpenAI.
07:50It's going to be working with a lot of parties in India.
07:52But right now, you can put intelligence into a farmer's hand.
07:55We're doing that with several initiatives in India.
07:57What are the biggest ingredients to the productivity of a piece of land?
08:00It could be the fertilizer you use or the methods you use to plant crops.
08:04These are all things that having guidance and support really matter.
08:07The number one uses of Chachipiti are for practical guidance and learning.
08:11These are the things that could help in agriculture or in the classroom.
08:14So it's real.
08:15It's happening.
08:16It'll be us.
08:16It'll be partners in India who know the local context.
08:18But I think this is a great potential.
08:19And it's one way to increase productivity in the economy.
08:22There's lots of other parts of the Indian economy to work with, too.
08:24But that's one key piece.
08:26As we said, we want to talk about the three T's, talent, trade, trust.
08:30Let's talk about talent for a moment.
08:31We have a large pool of young Indians, engineers, skilled labor.
08:39But we also have a large pool of unskilled labor.
08:42And presumably, one of the challenges is skilling.
08:45Because the fear from an Indian perspective is, will AI spread lead to job losses?
08:52And that's the last thing a country like India needs with its large demographic dividend.
08:56How do you see it?
08:57Are those fears real?
08:59Or is this fear-mongering?
09:01To believe that the more you spread AI, the more it's going to result in low-skilled jobs, particularly losing
09:08out.
09:09Yeah, let me take them one by one.
09:10I mean, first, when people have anxiety about jobs, whether or not that's born in the data, it is real.
09:16You have to take that feeling head on and talk to people about what the numbers are saying.
09:19We released a report recently that shows that AI is largely in India complementing workers more than substituting them.
09:25And this, by the way, is consistent with a lot of economic data, right?
09:28With the introduction of new technologies, you often see that technology is making workers more productive, not replacing them.
09:34And it depends on the pace of adoption, of course, with AI.
09:37I think in India, I am optimistic that it's going to complement a lot of human workers, especially the ones
09:41you're talking about.
09:42On the less skilled labor or the folks who have less access to resources, there's also a lot of applications
09:47for upskilling.
09:48We released a product recently that talks about, that helps people get more education and training using AI.
09:54You know, you might need help uploading your resume or writing a cover letter to an employer or even identifying
09:59some of the employers that you might work with.
10:01If you think about applying this to people who have fewer skills and less formal education, you could help people
10:07get access to opportunities they couldn't have before.
10:08AI doesn't just provide information, it also provides some navigation, right, to be able to navigate a job market.
10:14So I feel like it has potential on both ends you're talking about, to make workers more productive, but also
10:18help people who aren't necessarily part of the labor force or need more education and training, a chance to access
10:23those things.
10:23Because I saw a quote of yours which said, currently only 4% of firms have trained more than half
10:29their workforce in AI, therefore presenting a huge opportunity for growth.
10:35And as you said, AI could complement human talent.
10:39I've also seen statistics reveal that 65% of Indian companies have reduced or planning to reduce hiring after adopting
10:47AI.
10:47So only one of these two can be true.
10:49Either what you're saying that you're going to complement human talent or you're going to lose, you're going to lose
10:55a large section of your workforce because this pool of workers is just not ready for the AI revolution.
11:02So the training part has to come first, and that's why you see this number that we've talked about before.
11:07If you think about most companies, right, they haven't been on the process of working with people to actually learn
11:12how to use AI.
11:13This is a big gap.
11:14And when people ask me some of the recommendations I'd make to Indian business, this is one area that's going
11:18to be really important.
11:19Workers who are more adept with AI are going to be much more useful in the workforce.
11:24I tell people all the time, your job is much more likely to be taken by someone who knows AI
11:28than by AI.
11:29And this is something that's really important to the training.
11:31I'm looking at the same job market numbers that you're looking at as well.
11:34A lot of companies are making these planned announcements.
11:36Some of these are part of the regular business cycle, and it's being attributed to AI.
11:40Let's watch these job numbers.
11:41I'm doing the same thing in the United States so far.
11:42But we haven't seen a huge negative impact on the job market yet from AI.
11:47In many cases, we've seen increasing productivity, particularly in areas that have adopted it.
11:51In the U.S., for example, we have an unemployment rate below 5%, and we've been talking about these same
11:56issues for quite a long time.
11:57In the background, while these job market fears, while they're important, have been talked about, you're seeing companies put AI
12:03to use to do things they never could do before, and GDP growth as a result.
12:06So I think you can have a similar picture in India if you have more AI adoption.
12:10Of course, for workers who need training and skills during this transition, we're going to have to find ways to
12:15do that.
12:15So this transition phase, as you call it, is going to be the difficult one because you've got this huge
12:20disruption taking place.
12:22You've got a workforce which is not still skilled to adapt to the AI world.
12:27Will it create what many fear, like a digital divide and AI divide across India, those who have access to
12:34AI and those who don't?
12:36And that could be hugely disruptive in this transitional phase.
12:40When I grew up, the digital divide was a real thing, and it was within the United States and around
12:45the world.
12:45And we have to try to avoid this situation with AI.
12:48Open AI can do their part.
12:50We can't do this on our own.
12:51We're going to have to work with government and businesses here to make sure that's the case.
12:54But I do think this is a big risk.
12:56If we leave people behind with AI and AI results in more productivity, you're going to find a bigger divide
13:01between people who are using it and people who don't know how to use it.
13:04This is the thing we have to work on.
13:05And this is one of the reasons we're here.
13:06And this is why we have to democratize AI access.
13:08This is why we want to focus on India.
13:10I want to look at the second T, which is trade.
13:14Last week, the market saw what was termed as the AI trade scare.
13:19Software stocks plunging globally on worries surrounding AI advancements.
13:25Why did this happen?
13:26Do you believe markets will stabilize?
13:28Or will we again see, even within markets, particularly in software companies, further friction due to AI?
13:33So as an economist, I never will make predictions about the stock market, but I will tell you what's happened.
13:38What I think is happening is this AI capabilities as measured by the benchmarks we use to assess our models.
13:44They're going up and to the right.
13:45They're getting better and better and faster and faster.
13:48As a result, people are looking at all kinds of different markets, insurance, real estate, software as a service, and
13:54saying, oh, my goodness, AI can do that.
13:56I think the market will stabilize in the following sense.
13:59There are going to be a lot more competition in particular industry verticals, but there's still going to be a
14:04premium on companies that can deliver value in finance, in law, in health care.
14:08And institutional knowledge, the kind of that many companies in those areas have, is still going to be really useful.
14:13So I think AI is going to be a big factor.
14:15I also think a lot of the companies that are taking hits now will use AI to be more effective.
14:19And so I think that we'll see how this reaction evolves.
14:22But I'm pretty optimistic that just like the previous enterprise software revolution, a lot of value is going to be
14:27created in the vertical applications.
14:28And some of those, OpenAI will be involved in, but other ones, they'll be existing companies, incumbents, but also entrepreneurial
14:34entrants to places like India.
14:35The third T, which is trust, and particularly for, let's say, a media network, that becomes an extremely important factor.
14:44We've already seen the mushrooming of deep fake and what that can do to the information systems.
14:49But there are wider fears, national security, fears to privacy.
14:53See, are those fears legitimate, and should every country, therefore, be looking to build their own sovereign AI systems with
15:04their own legal regulatory systems as a kind of guardrail?
15:07How do I ensure that AI doesn't become this national security threat?
15:12How do I ensure that AI doesn't threaten privacy?
15:16Every new technology is going to bring opportunities like we talked about, but also these real challenges, and they are
15:20real.
15:21As you think about, for example, child safety, that's one thing that's really important to me personally, but also to
15:26the organization.
15:27We released this new teen safety blueprint to talk about how we can improve safety for young people using the
15:32platform.
15:33It's really important in India, where we have the largest population of students using Chachupiti compared to any place in
15:38the world.
15:39So this is definitely something we have to work with governments on, and we have to have a cooperative relationship
15:43to get things done.
15:44I will say when it comes to national security, you see governments taking a stronger role to make sure that
15:49their stack is secure, and they're cooperating with trusted partners.
15:52I hope open AI can be part of that as well.
15:54The one thing I will say is we have to make sure that we don't slow down innovation too much,
15:59though, as we put up these barriers or these controls, right?
16:01You wouldn't necessarily want to slow down the adoption of AI and fall behind from a national competitive standpoint.
16:07The challenge for policymakers is to find a way to protect security, protect privacy, right?
16:12Make products safe, but also still use AI in the economy to drive productivity.
16:16That's the difficult balance.
16:17It's one that I faced when I worked in the U.S. government.
16:19It's one that you'll face here in India.
16:21Because I'll give you a concrete example.
16:23What happened with Grok?
16:24You've got a conversational generative AI tool, which was suddenly being weaponized to create sexually explicit images of primarily women
16:33and minors.
16:34Now, what do governments do?
16:36I mean, how much can government control?
16:38As you said, there is this thirst for innovation to be the newest with the newest tool out there.
16:44How much can governments do?
16:45And will open AI just throw its hands up and say, look, this is all that we can do.
16:49Are you willing to do the policing, for example?
16:52Oh, I mean, this is where that third T matters.
16:54I can speak for our organization and say, this is the number one priority.
16:57When you think about trust and safety, this is why we have hundreds of people working on this topic within
17:01open AI.
17:02This is why we released the child safety blueprint here in India.
17:05And this is why we'll continue to work with your government on this.
17:07And so I think, if I think about open AI and the mission, this is something that's always going to
17:11be in our focus, right?
17:12Regardless of where we operate in the world, but particularly in India, given what we're talking about today.
17:15But can there be global standards?
17:17Can there be a global guardrail in place?
17:19Or will each country, because of sovereignty issues, have to have its own systems in your view?
17:24And will open AI be willing to work with governments, work with the Indian government to put those guardrails in
17:30place?
17:30Because presumably, I mean, this is a fear.
17:33Some engineer sitting in the Bay Area is determining, in a way, my preferences, how Chad GPD works.
17:40How much sovereignty do I really have anymore?
17:42See, this is where the trust factor has to work.
17:44And I think there's two ways it operates, through markets and through government.
17:47From a market perspective, we're in a competitive market, right?
17:49We might have 100 million weekly active users in India.
17:52But if we start providing biased results or don't give users what they find valuable, they'll go somewhere else.
17:57We know it's competitive.
17:58We have frontier intelligence, but there's other people who can offer something as well.
18:01So market forces will discipline part of this, and then government will have to play a strong role, particularly on
18:05the child safety issues.
18:06There's no way around that.
18:07But can I ask you, for example, open AI, is the goal at the moment, let's find revenue models, let's
18:14maximize revenues?
18:16Or is it, let's put in place these systems, even if revenues slow down, to ensure that we are at
18:24the cutting edge of technology without, let's say, interfering the people in privacy, for example?
18:30I'll say two things on this.
18:32Safety has always been core to the mission, so that's going to be guiding what we do.
18:36We don't see an inherent conflict in many cases between safety and being successful as an organization.
18:40If we're trying to provide AI to as many people as we can, we're only going to be able to
18:44do that if people trust our products and if they're safe.
18:46So in some sense, this trade-off, it can be real in some situations, but we don't see it as
18:50adversarily as others do.
18:51Safety has got to be number one.
18:54The other challenge, Roni, is that this computing power is going to lead a huge amount of energy, a huge
19:01amount of data usage.
19:02Do you believe countries like India are equipped or, again, well behind the clock when it comes to that?
19:08I want an honest answer.
19:09I know you're in India, but the truth of the matter is, again, I come back to the Chinese and
19:14the Americans.
19:14The more one reads, simply seem to be in another league.
19:17What can, does India have the capabilities, you believe, in the next few years to catch up?
19:24I think India definitely needs a sea change into how they invest in infrastructure and the permitting process by building
19:30these different sort of facilities.
19:31I have a lot of experience in chips, as you know, and when it comes to building a fab, and
19:35I think about the time it takes to build a fab or the skilled workforce required.
19:39These are things that have to change if India is going to continue to invest in infrastructure.
19:42From a policy perspective, I expect the government to be focusing on that.
19:45It seems like the recent plan is in that direction.
19:47So what would be the three things?
19:48If you were to advise, if you were chief economist AI for India, move away from OpenAI, come to GOI.
19:55Is anyone offering me this job?
19:56Because I might take it.
19:58What would be the three things that you would tell them to do?
20:00First, skilled workforce.
20:02We need more investment in the manufacturing workforce.
20:04India has obviously been fantastic in developing software workforce.
20:08The manufacturing hardware piece, there's more work to be done.
20:11Second is developing more energy sources locally in India.
20:14That's a key issue you talked about.
20:16And the third is not just beyond the energy, but connecting to the grid and permitting around interconnection.
20:21Those are the three things, at least from my knowledge of India, that I think are really important.
20:24Because one of the things that we did in the recent budget was to give a tax holiday to foreign
20:28companies that want to come in and invest through their cloud services in data centers that are established by Indians.
20:36Do you believe those partnerships are the way forward?
20:39I think some of this will be partnerships.
20:41You can imagine the expertise of the hyperscalers, which are based largely in other places, cooperating with Indian firms that
20:46have local context and local knowledge.
20:49But I also think you might see indigenous firms in this area, too.
20:51It's something that we'll have to watch.
20:52But I think partnerships can be great in this area.
20:54Because today, the leader of the opposition in India has called it data theft, that we need to protect our
21:00data.
21:01This will, you know, Rahul Gandhi says that all these companies coming into India, they're stealing your data.
21:07Data should be protected.
21:08Can you protect?
21:09Can a country really protect data?
21:11Isn't it transnational now with no boundaries?
21:13These partnerships are happening all over the world.
21:15So, you know, I think that we can find ways to partner and bring capital and expertise to India and
21:20at the same time safeguard Indian data, for sure.
21:23Okay.
21:23I'm going to, one of the things being a TV channel is that the possibility exists that there will be
21:28AI anchors.
21:30Oh, interesting.
21:31Okay.
21:31Okay.
21:31And that's perhaps the end of people like us.
21:34I prefer you, though.
21:35I have to say I prefer humans.
21:36Thank you very much.
21:37Are you sure?
21:38Say that loudly enough so that we can survive.
21:41But we've got some AI anchors out there, and they've got some questions for you.
21:45Take a look.
21:46Oh, excellent.
21:47Thank you, Rajdeep.
21:48My question to Dr. Chatterjee.
21:49Will AI pose a bigger challenge to developing nations like India, where job creation for millions of youth is challenged,
21:57unlike the West, where population is significantly less?
22:01Oh, I think AI presents different challenges in India.
22:04I wouldn't say it's easier or harder.
22:05In the United States, the conversation is very much focused on white-collar jobs and the impact of AI on
22:11those jobs.
22:12In India, you have a different industrial mix and a different workforce.
22:15In some cases, there's a lot of those who can benefit from the expansion of intelligence to provide services that
22:19you don't have currently.
22:21Think about things like education.
22:22In the other sense, there's a lot of jobs in the software industry here that you have to watch closely.
22:26So I personally am watching these companies in the BPO industry specifically as they try to move up the value
22:31chain yet again.
22:32They've done it many times.
22:33They've been very flexible and scalable.
22:35AI presents a new challenge.
22:36I expect a lot of those companies are going to utilize AI to move further and further up the value
22:40chain.
22:40But it's a more competitive environment for one of the biggest sort of employers in the Indian context in software.
22:45What do you see, therefore, I know in the world of AI, it's very difficult to predict the future because
22:51every month seems to bring some disruption or the other.
22:53But if I were to ask you, even a five-year horizon, where would we be in 2030?
22:58Where would India be?
22:59Where would the world be in embracing this AI economy?
23:02What's your projection?
23:03Projection, I think, on the capabilities, they're continuing to advance very rapidly.
23:08The one thing I learned coming from academia and from government to open AI is I underestimated how quickly the
23:14capabilities were advanced.
23:15I underestimated how quickly the models were improving.
23:17I think that's going to continue if we continue to see the scaling laws that guide a lot of the
23:22innovation apply.
23:23And I'm confident in that.
23:24I think that enterprises and individuals are going to find new uses, but the adoption rates are going to vary
23:29dramatically by organizations and countries.
23:32I expect India to be one of the leaders in this space.
23:34I think the commitment to this summit here in India is one direction, but it's going to take work both
23:38on the education side from K to 12 and also in secondary and advanced education,
23:42but also inside companies to train employees.
23:45The countries and the organizations that can reduce the capability overhang, this idea that the models are very capable,
23:51but people don't even know how to use it for that, that is really the key.
23:54India has a lot of data pointing in the direction they're going to be able to do that,
23:57given the higher than average proportion of people who are using tools for coding and data analysis.
24:03That's the thing India needs to build on.
24:04I expect it to be in a good position in four or five years.
24:06In one of your papers, you warned against outsourcing critical thinking to AI, which I thought is fascinating.
24:13Now, how do you do that?
24:15How do we get our education system, which is extremely exam-driven and marks-driven, to actually create a system?
24:24Because I see young kids looking at chat GPD for basic homework, which perhaps only means that critical thinking no
24:35longer takes place.
24:36So how do you ensure that India's next generation does not outsource critical thinking to AI?
24:42This is my biggest worry about AI, is that I have kids myself, 8th grade, 6th grade, 3rd grade, and
24:49I want them to learn the fundamentals.
24:50I want them to learn how to add and subtract before I give them the calculator.
24:54I want them to learn how to write an essay before they use AI to do it.
24:58Once they learn those foundations, though, AI can be a tremendous force multiplier.
25:02I think about my flight across the country that I take every other week.
25:06I talk to chat GPD the whole way about economics, and I learn things I never could have learned from
25:11any book.
25:12That kind of generative thinking, that back and forth, is what I want my kids to have.
25:15But I don't want them to outsource the critical thinking and the fundamentals.
25:18So it comes back to two things.
25:19How we design our education system, right?
25:21If I'm a professor by background, of course, how do we design our assessments?
25:24If the assessments are all take-home exams, then students are going to be encouraged to use AI.
25:28We have to put more presentation skills, oral presentations, being able to quiz people on the spot,
25:33rather than just relying on written assessments.
25:35The second thing we need to do is make sure that we use the tools in the right place,
25:39at the right standard or the right grade, at the right time.
25:41It can't be for every exercise.
25:43And this is going to be up to local school districts, depending on where you are,
25:46or sometimes national standards, depending on the education system.
25:49I think parents also have to play a really strong role.
25:51I know my kids are probably watching, and they'll say that I could do better at that.
25:54But I will say that parents and teachers need to take a lot of interest in this.
25:58Otherwise, we will have the problem you're talking about, and it's a big worry for me as an educator.
26:01Okay, let me end by saying, as someone of Indian origin who comes back here,
26:06you look at India, you look at this energy that's, you know, I believe that India's aspirational energies
26:12are even greater than the United States in its pump in the last century.
26:16There's that on the, that's the big positive.
26:20From your perspective, as someone returning home in a way, if I may say so,
26:24what's the biggest positive you see about the India story,
26:27and what's the one thing that you see that troubles you?
26:31The youth. I mean, India is so young.
26:35I mean, you all know this well, but as someone who comes here, you know,
26:38three or four times a year, like, the youth is really what gets you, right?
26:41And the demographics of India and what the potential it presents is fantastic.
26:46And you're right, it's unlike any country in the world in terms of where the youth are going.
26:50And, like, even after talks like this, I talk to lots of people,
26:53but I end up talking to college students and high school students.
26:55Those are people that inspire me so much.
26:57The challenge is, can you create enough opportunities here
27:00for those millions of graduates every year?
27:03Can you build the infrastructure necessary around the whole stack, right,
27:06to build an AI ecosystem that works?
27:08These are big challenges.
27:09We're struggling with them in the United States and around the world.
27:11This is the biggest challenge for India.
27:12So the biggest challenge, in a way, is scalability.
27:14For a billion citizens, I'm talking about 1.5 billion population,
27:18but a billion citizens who possibly today could use AI tools.
27:22Open AI, and indeed AI's challenge, is how do I scale up?
27:26And this is something I hope Open AI can help with.
27:28Big dreams, big challenges go together.
27:30Okay.
27:31Ronnie Chatterjee, for joining us here, Dr. Chatterjee,
27:34and giving us what this dream could look like,
27:36and what the challenges are, and what the opportunities are.
27:39Please give him a very big hand.
27:40Thank you very much for joining me.
27:41Thank you very much.
27:42Thank you for having me.
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