“The path for harnessing data using artificial intelligence and other technologies needs to be cleared in a way that it can be used freely and in abundance. This can be done by easing ethical, societal and regulatory challenges,” said Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran.

Delivering the keynote address at the Nasscom Technology & Leadership Forum, Chandrasekaran spoke about using technology to solve fundamental problems in various sectors.

The notion of AI taking up jobs comes from advanced economies, which are grappling with issues of diminishing workforce. Developing markets such as India can make these technologies play out differently, according to Chandrasekaran.

“We are generating unbelievable volumes of data from various sectors. Technologies like AI and machine learning can be used to make sense of this information to augment the workforce of these sectors and further create employment,” he said.

Bridge doctor-patient ratio

Citing an example of pilot projects conducted in the healthcare sector, he claimed that technology can be used to bridge the gap in the doctor-patient ratio.

Structured and unstructured health data can be processed and could help improve the productivity of experts and accredited social health activist (ASHA) workers. There is now an estimated shortage of 600,000 doctors, and if you extrapolate this shortage between 2020 and 2030, 80 per cent can be met by deliberately deploying technology in primary healthcare.

Similarly, he spoke about deploying these new-age technologies in sectors such as agriculture, development and infrastructure, skilling and education to augment human and physical capital.

“To be able to harness this technology and data, we need to change our outlook towards technology and first reach an agreement on the framework for data privacy, data residency and data localisation,” he added.

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