Committed to supporting India AI mission's application development initiative: ChatGPT maker OpenAI

New Delhi: ChatGPT maker OpenAI is committed to supporting IndiaAI mission's application development initiative, a senior company executive said on Wednesday, highlighting that concrete use cases of Artificial Intelligence (AI) are emerging in the country across areas such as agriculture, healthcare and education.

OpenAI is keeping India in mind in important decisions that are being made, the company's Vice President, Srinivas Narayanan said, endorsing India's AI Mission.

Speaking at the 'Global IndiaAI Summit', Narayanan said India's AI Mission is a "shining example" for not just the Global South but for the entire world, of an end-to-end public investment in generative AI.

Narayanan, who leads OpenAI's engineering efforts including ChatGPT and API (the developer platform), said the company's senior leadership has been visiting the country from time to time, participating in various forums and events here, and "keeping up" with developments unfolding in India.

"We are keeping India in mind in whatever important decisions we are making," he said.

ChatGPT, launched about one-and-a-half years ago was initially considered to be a low-key research preview but over the last 18 months, it turned out to be transformative, impacting lives of people in ways never imagined before.

AI is being used in many new industries in India and across the world.

Narayanan spoke at length on ways in which India is harnessing AI, noting its use cases in agriculture, education and healthcare.

AI has already added speed to an already-dynamic entrepreneurial ecosystem in India, he observed.

"Entrepreneurs understand market gaps, they are building innovative products, and tools like ChatGPT are helping them accelerate this in completely new ways," he said, adding "we are reducing the cost of intelligence, enabling developers to write code and helping them create completely conversational and natural interfaces to computing."

"So this journey, from focusing on tasks and jobs to bold startups and national missions is really inspiring," he said.

OpenAI is committed to supporting India AI mission's application development initiative to ensure that Indian developers can build on its models and deliver social benefit at scale, Narayanan asserted.

"We really look to continuing conversation with the Ministry (IT Ministry) and gauging where we might be able to add the most value," he said.

Citing concrete use cases of AI in India, he said in agriculture, the new-age technology is making it possible to provide more support to farmers in rural communities, while in education, offering personalised learning at scale is a "massive opportunity".

In this context, he mentioned NGO Digital Green, which has developed a chatbot called farmer chat (built on GPT4) to offer farmers relevant information and advice. In education, he said companies like Physics Wallah are building on products like ChatGPT to deliver personalised exam preparation to millions.

"The final shining example is the IndiaAI Mission itself, and it sets a great example not just in the global south, but for around the world, for what an end-to-end public investment in generative AI might entail," he said.

OpenAI has learnt a lot about India, he said and added that the company has reduced costs following feedback from developers, and worked on improving language support on all of its models.

"We are really committed to learning more from India, and we are already delivering on this," he said and mentioned that the company has a new head of policy and partnerships in India.

OpenAI wants Artificial Intelligence to be aligned to core human values, and safety is at the core of its mission.

"We want to maximise the benefits while reducing harms, and to do this work we have a great opportunity to build new institutions that...establish international order and cooperation much like how the world came together in the last century in many areas like finance, health and environment," he said.

According to the OpenAI executive, India has a unique approach to making AI beneficial for people through initiatives like Digital Public Infrastructure, which has created transformative offerings like the UPI.

"... India has an essential leading role to play in the development of these institutions and leading the beneficial adoption of AI," Narayanan asserted.