DEMOCRATIZING AI TOWARDS OPEN, DECENTRALIZED AI ECOSYSTEMS

As India gears up to lead the Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolution, it is looking to truly democratize AI by replicating the principles and approaches of its Digital Public Goods (DPI) model. India envisages AI as a “big tool to solve many problems simultaneously” and looks to leveraging AI to “address economic and social challenges while containing associated risks”. Accordingly, India’s approach to AI is to ensure that it is accessible to all and that no single player has a monopoly on the technology. Much like the development of DPI and India Stack, India aspires to create an AI environment where the government invests in platforms, and everybody is able to build atop these technology layers to innovate and deliver AI products and services in a competitive and collaborative manner.

This approach will make AI more accessible to citizens, discourage monopolies and ensuring interoperability, use of open-source technologies, transparency, inclusion, collaboration, and sufficient guardrails in this space. Offering AI-as-a-service to its citizens will help promote the adoption of AI and foster innovation in this sector. India is looking to create a platform where computing power, high-quality data sets, and a common protocol and a common framework will be available for all.

In this context, the Centre for Digital Societies, Observer Research Foundation is organizing the Workshop on Democratizing AI on February 28, 2025 in Kolkata. The workshop aims to provide a framework and starting point to explore how India can promote the growth of its AI ecosystem, and build its AI stack to make AI easily available for all, by broadly replicating the approach of its DPI model.

Programme