Indian policymakers specialised in artificial intelligence (A.I.), who were surveyed by tech giant OpenAI on AI risk perceptions, broadly said that threats to education from A.I. are a uniquely high area of concern in India compared to other countries.
However, experts within government, industry, and academia told The Hindu that they disagreed with many findings of the OpenAI risk perceptions study. They said that A.I. threats to education are overblown, misplaced, and failed to recognise that the benefits greatly outweigh the dangers in India.
OpenAI’s private research conducted between September to December of 2023 through surveys and expert interviews with a few dozen policymakers in five countries found that “Education risks (e.g., students over-relying on AI tools at the expense of critical thinking skills), were viewed as least risky,” but “India is a notable exception: Indian respondents ranked risks to education as the fifth priority area of concern, greater than geopolitical risks or the alignment problem.”
No explanation was given in the OpenAI study for why Indian policymakers found A.I. in education risks to be of particularly high concern. OpenAI did not respond to multiple requests for comment for this article.
The OpenAI study, which The Hindu exclusively obtained, focused on four broad categories: benefits and risks from A.I., pace of A.I. development, AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) and existential risks, and A.I. risk management. The study implicitly focused on cutting edge generative A.I. use cases such as A.I. tools that generate new text, images, videos etc. rather than broad uses of artificial intelligence which have existed for many years.
OpenAI, the largest and most popular generative A.I. company in the world, found in the study that the greatest dangers from the technology came from “ ‘A.I. misuse/malicious use’ by bad actors and ‘economic risks’ (like job displacement due to automation),” according to policymakers surveyed in five different countries: India, Japan, Taiwan, U.K., and the U.S.
On the other hand, OpenAI’s risk perceptions study, which was not released publicly, found that “advanced research and discovery and health advancements,” were identified by survey respondents from all countries as the most beneficial applications of A.I. over the next five years.
OpenAI’s private study surveyed 47 policy officials including those within the Indian government, civil society, and A.I. scholars, with a focus on career officials within the Ministries along with the non-governmental entities in India.
Advitiya Sharma, chief growth officer of leading EdTech company Schoolnet, disagreed with parts of the OpenAI study findings, highlighting the fundamental issue with generative A.I. use in particular within education in India is the lack of understanding and awareness which creates a lack of confidence and overstates the problems associated with the technology.
“We’ve already worked with tens of thousands of teachers and students who have used A.I. in their schools and the benefits outweigh the risks or dangers that exist,” said Mr. Sharma who is a serial entrepreneur who previously co-founded Housing.com and founded Genius Teachers, a quiz-based e-learning platform.
“The other four countries in the OpenAI study are much more ahead of India regarding their use and understanding of A.I. in education and other fields so there’s bound to be a higher perception of problems in India if it’s not been used much before,” Mr. Sharma said.
Mr. Sharma added that if the OpenAI study were conducted again in 18-24 months, the risk perception of A.I. in education in India would drastically decrease due to widespread use and awareness of the benefits of it as well as the vulnerabilities going down.
Some of the specific elements of A.I. policymaking in India that OpenAI conducted its survey about include pitfalls within the education sector as well as the growing optimism and trust that India has placed in public-private cooperation mechanisms.
The potential loss of critical reasoning among students due to the use of the technology in education in India is one of the most important considerations and threats, according to Indian educators and policymakers surveyed by OpenAI.
For example, thanks to cutting-edge generative A.I. tools, a student may not need to think or reason out a problem because the technology can give them an immediate answer and thereby could cause a decrease in original thinking and problem-solving skills among students.
Another potential worry of Indian educators is that if students around the country are using generative A.I. tools like OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT chatbot then schools could face the challenge of testing machine intelligence rather than the students themselves and this could force educators to change the way they assess and test students.
“Some challenges definitely exist like when A.I. tools produce incorrect or misleading results but still I’m very optimistic about A.I. in education because it’s great for brainstorming and is a very useful knowledge co-creation tool,” said Krishnan Narayanan, Research Lead at IIT Madras’ Centre for Responsible AI, which is driving a ‘GenAI4Edu’ initiative.
“We just have to learn how to design A.I. systems to be Socratic, to get the technology to force students to come up with or be guided to answers themselves rather than giving them the answer automatically,” said Krishnan, an award-winning author of ‘Against All Odds: The IT Story of India’, and former senior executive at Infosys.
Published – December 26, 2024 03:39 pm IST