Responsible innovation, reskilling needed as tech cos embrace Gen AI: Industry experts

With generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) set to impact operations in businesses, industry experts emphasise the need for reskilling, as they push for responsible innovation.

World's richest man Elon Musk has formed the "maximally curious, truth-seeking" artificial intelligence company xAI, he revealed on Twitter Spaces. He suggests self-regulation via an industry body.

Arun Kumar Parameswaran, Senior Vice President and Managing Director, Salesforce India said while Gen AI plays a crucial role in its operations across verticals, merely delivering its capabilities is not enough.

"As companies race to adopt and implement generative AI, it is imperative to prioritise balance. Merely delivering generative AI capabilities is insufficient; responsible innovation must take precedence," he said.

Companies are betting big on Gen AI. HCL Enterprise and Wipro Ltd announced Gen AI labs, with Wipro pledging $1 billion for developing AI solutions.

Chennai-headquartered software company Zoho intends to take Gen AI in-house and is currently developing Learning Language Models (LLMs), which can converse, summarise, paraphrase, and adapt to new tasks with zero-shot learning techniques for AI-driven communication and discovery, Ramprakash Ramamoorthy, Director of AI Research at the company told PTI.

He feels that AI itself cannot displace someone from a job but an individual with access to AI can.

"While laws of the land are still catching up, today most AI development is self-regulated. Given that this involves sensitive, private information, companies deploying AI must have a strong moral stand when building this technology," he said.

Vijay Shekhar Sharma, the Founder and CEO of Paytm expressed concern over the power amassed by some people and countries.

"Here is an OpenAI blog post done this week: In less than 7 years, we have a system that may lead to the disempowerment of humanity and even human extinction," he tweeted.

Recently, ecommerce startup Dukaan's founder and CEO replaced 90% of its customer support team with an AI chatbot.

Entrepreneurs must be sensitive towards negative repercussions of their actions while using AI and find alternatives, feels Founder and CEO of TeamLease Shantanu Rooj.

"Organisations will need to balance business advantages with societal impact," he added.

Ajay Kumar, the CEO of Bengaluru-based technology services provider SLK, shares that there is a dot com and mobility boom-like excitement among entrepreneurs, making it difficult to keep pace with advancements.

"Amidst all this excitement of creating new business models and securing financial valuations, we have to ensure data privacy and proper ethical standards so that technology works for all of us," he pointed out.

Sonya Ahuja, Founder and COO of edtech Imarticus Learning said, "Recognising the recent volatility in edtech platforms and layoff concerns, disruption in the industry, technological advancement should go hand in hand with upskilling and reskilling initiatives."

E-learning startup Physics Wallah has an AI-powered "Ask Doubt" tool that suggests related doubts and provides guidance to students using its database.

Chief Technology Officer Devesh Mishra encourages human-controlled, transparent AI to "maintain the human touch". "Technology should complement and enhance human capabilities rather than replace or undermine them," he added.

San Francisco-based transcription tool Fireflies.ai is working on personalised note-taking. Its ChatGPT-like assistant AskFred pulls up answers using the notes repository.

Krish Ramineni, CEO of Fireflies.ai, feels organisations that fail to adopt transformative technologies will struggle to keep pace with early adopters. He sees AI as a calculator or Excel-like tool, which makes work faster.

"AI can crunch numbers, provide projections, and suggest areas for improvement. However, when it comes to building trust and closing deals, nothing beats the human touch," he added.

San Mateo-based Yellow.ai aims to democratise technology on its platform by supporting local and regional languages.

CEO and Co-founder of Yellow.ai Raghu Ravinutala notes that entrepreneurs should proactively address the impact of automation on jobs.

"While technological advancements may lead to job displacement in certain sectors, entrepreneurs should invest in retraining to ensure smooth workforce transition," he notes.

Sam Altman, Founder and CEO of ChatGPT developer OpenAI, was among 350 signatories of the Centre for AI Safety statement for reducing the risk of human extinction from AI.

Amit Das, Founder and CEO of Mumbai-based IT services provider Think360.ai, observes that one is scared of what one does not fully understand in the short term. "While mass-market AI like ChatGPT is exciting and scary at the same time, task automation will make way for innovations," he added.

Soham Chokshi, CEO and Co-founder of AI-powered logistics company Shipsy, feels technology should empower the workforce. "Technology should not be viewed as a replacement for human efforts," he added.