RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das emphasises on need to eliminate biases in algorithms

Mumbai: RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das on Friday emphasised on the need to eliminate biases in algorithms as the use of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) is on the rise.

Delivering the inaugural address at the 18th Statistics Day Conference organised by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), he said the use of statistics has been ever growing as a preferred tool for drawing inferences in diverse fields and the discipline has moved beyond collection of facts to focusing more on interpretation and drawing inferences, taking into account the level of uncertainty.

This shift, Das said has allowed statistics to become an integral part of other major disciplines. The surge in computing power is being increasingly harnessed in combination with statistical methods to improve efficiency in decision making and enrich end-user experience in various fields of human knowledge.

"Looking ahead, the year 2025 has a special significance for compilation of official statistics the world over. Global efforts are expected to culminate in new global standards for compilation of macroeconomic statistics, especially for national accounts and balance of payments," he said, and added the team in the Reserve Bank is closely tracking these developments.

He further said RBI is making efforts to harness the availability of huge computing power and growing digital footprints to analyse measures of expectations, sentiment indicators and policy credibility measures from alternative data sources.

The governor emphasised that the volume of digital data stored as well as the storage capacity are growing at an exponential pace, bringing forth new challenges along with new opportunities.

"The focus now is naturally on enhancing capacity in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) techniques and analysing unstructured textual data. While doing so, ethical considerations need to be addressed and biases in algorithms need to be eliminated," he said.

The Reserve Bank has ventured into AI/ML analytics in multiple areas. Under the Reserve Bank’s aspirational goals for RBI@100, he said the central bank is aiming to develop cutting edge systems for high frequency and real-time data monitoring and analysis.