"Will AI Replace Jobs In India?" What Minister Rajeev Chandrashekhar Said

Union Minister Rajeev Chandrashekhar laid out a blueprint for the future of Artificial Intelligence in India in an exclusive interview with NDTV today. "We want to be at the cutting edge in terms of where the AI goes," Mr Chandrashekhar said, quickly adding that the government is also looking to create "guardrails on where AI shouldn't go".

"We also want to create our guardrails on where AI shouldn't go and we have laid out our doctrine for the whole world to follow. We are going to regulate them through the prism of user harm and not follow some other countries," he said.

The Minister of State for IT and Electronics - who is leading a massive exercise involving wide consultation with stakeholders to frame the draft Digital India Act that will replace the two-decade-old IT Act - said, "we will regulate it (AI) in such a way it can't harm a user on the internet, whether it is misinformation or any kind of harm."

Talking about India's digital future, Mr Chandrashekhar said that the country is moving towards a "techade" - a term previously used by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to refer to the decade in which technology predominated and India produced the majority of them.

He said that the government is aiming to make India a "trillion-dollar digital economy" over the next few years.

"We plan to be a trillion-dollar digital economy. We want to take the digital part of the economy from currently six to seven per cent of GDP to 20 per cent," he said.

"There's not going to be any part of the global economy ecosystem where India and its startups won't be a part of," he added.

The minister also dealt with the burning question about AI's impact on jobs - "Will AI replace jobs?"

"I think AI will disrupt but it will also bring opportunities," was Mr Chandrashekhar's response.

"It gives an opportunity to create AI-ready skilled talent which really has a shortage all around the world and India can be in furture a hub for AI-ready talent for India and the rest of the world," he said.

He also spoke about the use Indian semiconductor NavIC chip on a satellite that was launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation ISRO) yesterday.

"This is a very important marker of what the future holds for us. This is a very powerful statement not just about atmanirbharta but also about the deep tech capability to back that up. this is about designing a semiconductor, getting it manufactured, putting it in a chip and having the ecosystem of satellites to support the absolutely independent Global Positioning System that is designed and originated and launched and managed from India.

The ISRO on Monday successfully launched and put into Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit the first of a series of its second-generation navigation satellites - NVS-01 - using a GSLV rocket.

The launch of the NVS-01 is significant as it would ensure the continuity of NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation) services - an Indian regional satellite navigation system, similar to GPS, providing accurate and real-time navigation.