FULL DISCUSSION: Nilekani & Anthropic CEO's Clash on India’s Role in Global AI Transformation | AQ1B

0:00 interest can transform entire societies and Aadhaar is a big example before the world. His thinking on artificial intelligence and open digital ecosystems is essential reading for anyone serious about this field. So ladies and gentlemen, I would now invite Mr. Nandan Nilakani and Mr. Dario Ammo for this conversation which is being moderated by Mr. Rahul Matan partner triil legal. I invite all our three guests on the stage.

0:48 Please welcome our guests on the stage. Thank you. Nan Dario welcome Dario great speech in in the morning. you mentioned the that we are in the end of the or towards the end of the exponential. This is something that you spoke about in machines of loving grace that we would have a country of geniuses in a data center. And the models over the last I guess two months have been sort of giving us a sense that we're getting there. But in your podcast with Darkh, you sort of walked that back a bit by saying you know we may reach a country of geniuses in a data center but the impact on society will take a long time. Can you explain what that means because we thought we'd do Asia and we we'd be finished and done with it.

1:41 >> Yeah, thank you. Thank you for having us Raul. you know I I I would say there is this duality between the fundamental capabilities of the technology and the time that it takes for those capabilities to you know to diffuse into the world right we're getting models that are very good at software engineering that are increasingly good at you know biomed innovation we're not there yet but we're on this very fast exponential but when I look across the world and and you know I look across the enterprises of the world we have many enterprises as customers, even if we freezed in place what the technology was capable of today, I I I think the economic impact could be much greater than it is because, you know, it just takes time. And there are just frictions to adopt things through through through through through through through through through enterprises. And you know I think I think I think I think even more so in in in the developing world and you know when I when I you know visited visited Infosys one of the things I talked about with with with Nandan was you know the the the we're both obviously very interested in you know making sure that this technology gets to everyone and Nandan has has you know has devoted a big part of his life to to you know many things you know many things in that direction and has you know built out built out India's digital public infrastructure and so you know I I I think this question of diffusion is very tied to the question of how do we make sure that everyone benefits.

3:02 >> So when the foundation models came Nandan you said that we should do use cases and it sounds like Tario is saying the same thing that even if we do the foundational model we will still need to do use cases. No, I think it's great what the foundations models are doing and the speed of evolution but what we have learned is that diffusion of technology is a different ballgame and how do you get technology to a billion people and I think India we have a little bit of experience with that 1.4 4 billion people on Aadhaar, 500 billion people on UPI, 20 billion transactions a month, the world's largest cash transfer system, the largest financial inclusion system, you name it, all that stuff. And we learned that diffusion is a technique. It's both an art and a science. It involves institutions, it involves policym, negotiations, dealing with incumbents, dealing with newcomers, strategies for execution. So the whole you know trust building. It's a whole host of thing and I think if all the investments in AI are going to deliver the value to society not to just to individuals we'll have to look at diffusion pathways to take this to everyone and I think India will lead on that that's why I've always been saying that India should focus on becoming the use case capital of the world you had a more recent essay which you call the adolescence of technology which is a little more somber spoke a little bit about sort of dimming the enthusiasm of the first essay. and I want you to perhaps unpack that a little bit. you know we we all have spoken about the risks of the technology but particularly in the global south where we think that AI is going to be hugely beneficial for us.

4:48 We perhaps will have a different calculus on the riskreward ratio. What do you think about that and and how would your essay address that? I you know I think that's that I think that's an insightful comment which is that you know I you know I think I think in the global south there's an opportunity for AI to accelerate catch-up growth to solve a bunch of problems that are that are in the way of catch-up growth and so you know the the I you know I think AI is a technology that has you know big risks and big benefits but but in in the global south the benefits may be even bigger than than they are than they are anywhere else but at the same time that doesn't mean of course that the risks aren't real you know we we you know we kind of India is the world's largest democracy you know we need to think about how democracies handle AI and you know how how how we you know how we can how we confront other other countries that are that are authoritarian you know that's one of the risks I talk about another risks I talk about is making sure that AI systems are safe and predictable and you know autonomously behave in a way that's under our control and you know everyone in the world has to worry about that that affects everyone in the world And then you know I think of particular relevance to to to India is you know the concerns I raised around economic displacement right where you know the the I think the signature of this technology is going to be that it it greatly grows the economic pie for the whole world and again you know huge upside because the opportunity for catch-up growth like you know growth can be can be very very fast but you know there's there things are going to change and there's some potential for disruption and you know I think what I've thinking about as I visited India these last few days and the last time I visited is you know how can we work together with the companies in in in India to kind of drive this growth for everyone to make sure that the existing companies large and small continue to prosper along with us and the other makers of of of of AI and and you know also on a philanthropic basis how we how we make sure that the benefits reach everyone both in an economic sense in a health sense in kind of other senses. So you know I think I think I think India is you know it kind of offers a particularly keen distillation of of you know especially the benefits but but also the risks.

7:02 >> Now then you've had experience with an adolescent technology with you with the whole DPI. in the early days of DPI it was challenging. There were challenges with getting you know the big vision which of course now we're looking at and in hindsight it looks like it was easy but the early days was difficult. So as the father of a of a mature technology would you want to give the father of a an adolescent some advice?

7:28 >> I know that makes me a grandfather. Okay. >> So, so I think it diffus when I when you talk about diffusion and you know you have to think of AI everybody agrees is like a general purpose technology like people give the simile to fire or electricity or whatever. It's about starting from the user and how can we improve their lives. How can we take a billion people and help them to learn better? How can we take a billion people and give them better healthcare? How can we take a half a billion farmers and improve their earnings? You have to start from there and then figure out how to make it happen. And it's not just technology. Technology is just one piece of the puzzle. It's about institutions.

8:13 It's about trust building. It's about negotiations. It's about guardrails which you know Dario mentioned. It's about working with different stakeholders and making them go towards a common vision. So it's it's diffusion is difficult. It's not not a simple task. So I think I feel that India will demonstrate this because we have the experience of diffusion at population scale in all the various areas and obviously diffusion of AI there are some differences that we need to think about data you know guard rails and so on. But I think we can build a pathway or multiple pathways to that goal and that will show the world because I believe right now in AI there's a race to the top and a race to the bottom and the race to the bottom is faster than the race to the top. So I think all of us who have a stake in AI being useful to humanity have to accelerate and redouble our efforts to make the diffusion happen. Otherwise the consequences are going to be very very difficult because there's going to be a backlash. If the only thing that AI does is you know create deep fakes or raise the price of your power bill or you know all all the other things that are happening people are going to respond. I mean the the resent resentment of the blue collar worker led to the train wreck of globalization. The resentment of the white collar worker is going to lead to the train wreck of AI.

9:47 So I think we really have to work very hard to show profound useful cases of AI. Talia, you were in India in October and you're back again now. you spend a lot of time actually with the developer community. you clearly were impressed because you've come back so quickly. Could you tell us a little bit about you know what your experience is with how India is building and using AI? Perhaps just go through the stack I mean enterprise small business you startups then developers what's what's different about the way India does it?

10:27 >> Yeah. So, so I would say there's there's just there's just an excitement here and a technical acumen and we can even see it in the statistics of usage of claude. You know, use of claude for technical kind of programming and software engineering, mathematical tasks, the fraction is substantially higher here in India than it is in most other places in the world. and you know every time we every time I I I go to speak at one of these you know kind of you know we'll host these builder or developer events in in India just there's there's a lot of excitement you know I can feel the brimming excitement of like you know what is something that we can build in in just the last four months you know the the use of claud code has has doubled has doubled in India and you know I'm I'm I'm you know I'm sure it's the same for the other de I don't say that to promote claw and claude code like it's more a statement about the kind of excitement and excitement in India on on the enterprise level. I mean, you know, the the two of us just just announced a partnership just yesterday. So, you know, we're we're really excited to work with all the, you know, all the large enterprises in India. They know much more about the Indian market. They know much more about, you know, distribution. They know how to serve enterprises within within India. And, you know, they're much better at that than we are. and and you know can we plug our technology in into what they do and and you know create something that kind of you know that kind of wins for both sides right we would we would like to be able to you know jointly win with the with the companies in India and then and then finally I think there's a another element that's that's almost unique which is that there's an excitement to build but there's an excitement to build for public good and for philanthropic benefits. So, you know, Nandan kindly introduced me to the Xstat Foundation, of course, builds digital digital digital digital infrastructure, and we've already started to work on a number of a number of projects really to reach people in rural areas. we're trying to combine quad with something called open agret, which you know helps helps farmers in rural rural regions to kind of find better information and and and you know, better better advice to be more more effective and and efficient. and we're looking to expand that that that a great deal. So I think that's something you know that's something totally totally unique to to to to to India and that you know through folks in the private sector we would get we would get connected to these efforts and you know there would be mutual enthusiasm to promote these efforts >> and you of course have an office you've declared a managing director but actually more importantly u set 4.6 six which dropped yesterday very inconveniently so I couldn't try it apparently is doing very well on 10 indic languages so there seems to be a bit of a focus in your development as well on on India can you tell me why that's important why language cultural context is is important and what you know India can can play what role can play in that >> yeah so you know you know language models have always been multilingual but of course they're better at languages than they're that you know that they've been they've been trained more on and you know of course you know as as I learned when I first came here India has you know a very long tale of of of of regional languages and you know we see this as something related to access something related to making we we provide we provide benefits for everyone right if it can only speak the most common languages then there's a long tale we're not reaching right the farmers that we mentioned you know many of them speak speak one of the less common regional languages and So we we've put in place we put in place a push you know collaborating with folks in in India to acquire more more more more data for for this long tale of Indic languages and set 4.6 represents an improvement. We're you know we're not all the way there yet. We want these models to you know to be you know to to be you know as good even even far out in the long tale of these languages as as they are at you know speaking English.

14:20 and we're making progress towards that. We're not there yet, but we want to keep going. >> Now then, after you built DPI, I mean, I say after like as if you stopped, you still continue to do it, but after you did the bulk of the work, you spent some time and effort actually taking it out, to other countries. And I was wondering whether you've thought about that u for AI and you know as we we you know it's been mentioned so many times today that this is the first AI summit in the global south and so I think perhaps countries of the global south if there's a model as it were for doing this would benefit from those ideas. so as you think about it is it is it costs is it skill is it data infrastructure what is it that you know countries need to think about for this?

15:08 >> Oh sure no you know finally it's about a lived experience if you have done it you can do it better next time. So what we did in the DPI part the digital public infrastructure is that after several years of that experience we worked with global philanthropists set up something called core develop and said let's take DPI global and today we have some version of DPI running in about 40 countries around the world. We recently had a summit in Cape Town where we had 1200 delegates from 109 countries.

15:37 So you know it's become a global moment and we feel that AI has to be if AI has to really be impactful we need something similar. So we yesterday we just launched something called 100 diffusion pathways by 2030. We like to have targets. So >> can you explain that? >> Yeah. So the idea is that a diffusion pathway is basically a way to reach a particular goal which which you got from learning from from doing things and then packaging it and it's not just technical packaging. It's about guardrails. It's about how do you get institutions on board? How do you make you know how do you make data available? There's a whole host of things. But think of it as a as a toolbox or a playbook for doing things and then this is a global initiative. So we're going to work around the world and create multiple diffusion pathways and then share them with each other so that we can accelerate this thing and you know anthropic is part of that we have Google as part of that gates foundation is there UNP is there the Kenyan it's a global global coalition because what we learned from the agriculture experience you know we implemented we worked with Maharashtra on their agri stack which is called Mahavistar and that took us 9 months to figure out how to make it work safely at scale. We this using the same learning we it was done in Ethopia which took 3 months because we had the learning of Maharashtra and then using the same learning at the you know the PM was very keen to see it in animal husbandry. So we worked with Amul and we did that in 3 weeks. So you can see the trajectory of time right from 9 months to 3 months to 3 weeks. So what that shows is that if we can do this lived experience and keep improving and package that and take it to the world, we'll move the implementation of AI to the real world and that I think is strategically important for the world of AI.

17:29 >> So 100 by 30 is the new >> Yeah. 100 100 diffusion pathways by 2030 >> and we welcome everyone to join this moment. You have many such catchphrases but the one that really stood out to me at some time ago was India needs AI and AI needs India. We've spoken a bit about the India needs AI but why does AI need India because that's this is where we're going to show it working you know I mean I think because of the history of India's digital journey and thanks to the leadership of Prime Minister Modi who is the biggest champion of all the work that that's going on. We have a political leadership that's committed.

18:08 We have technologists. We have enough people with the right value system to make this happen. And we have done this before and therefore India will be where you'll see most of the deployment of AI in a tangible way where farmers able to make more money where children learn better where healthcare is better where you know people talk in their own language. So you have universal access. So this is where you're going to show this and we the world needs this to be shown and the AI companies need need this to be shown because they have to show real stuff where this is working at scale for people. So I think yeah it's very important.

18:49 >> Tario if I can ask you if you were to rewrite machines of loving race which is a beautiful 20,000word or something essay for India if you were if you were to think about you know what is that utopic vision of what AI could be for India what would it be? I I mean obviously not 20,000 words but you know whatever few ideas you could have now. Yeah, I mean you know you know I think I think a lot of what was there was was universal but there there you know there are some things that I would accentuate that are possible when you have such a large population for running you know running running this kind of large possibility possibility of experiments right you have you have here a very a very large population for kind of studying and improving human health you know there's there's you know worldclass medical research so I think I would double down especially on some of the sections about you know accelerating the cures for diseases. You know we just had Demis who you know has has you know basically solved the the protein folding problem with AI and kind of shown us all the way. and and you know what we need are like you know 50 50 improvements like that. and you know you know the the hope is you know working together between the between the AI developers and you know the folks who diffuse diffuse AI and do the actual medical research you know can can can all of us you know working together between the AI companies and and folks in India really really accelerate progress. you know I I would I would also say accelerating the rate of of of of economic development.

20:26 you know there is so much technical potential and technical adeptness in in in in India. and it it actually almost seems like a a perfect case study for the idea that AI could really accelerate economic growth because it seems like the the the base ingredients are are kind of all there and AI could help to tie them together. So you know in the developed world I've wondered you know well could AI lead us to you know 10 10% growth rates which sounds absurd but you know that the thing I imagined in the positive scenario of machines of loving grace but I think here in India there's a lot of catch-up growth to be done there's an enormous amount of technical potential and ability and you know the you know as I'm seeing there's this eagerness adopt to adopt AI so India is one of the few places in the world where I wonder you know could there be 20 or 25% growth which is you know sounds absurd is is unknown anywhere in the world but but as I think about this it kind of stacks all the factors for for a very bullish very bullish picture of how that growth could happen. So you know I you know I think I think I could I could imagine being in India being one of the one of the you know countries countries in the world that most embodies this certainly the big the large country that that most embodies this >> and Nandan with all of these things there needs to be some unlock so if you were to advise governments of the world governments of India governments of the global south what should they do to unlock this 20 25% growth that Dario dreams of >> I don't know about 25 and all If I get 10, I'll be happy. but but I think there are a number of things obviously I think people before have talked about the need to create massive compute. We need to bring in the models. We need I think the focus has to be on inclusion. I think this AI has to carry everybody.

22:25 Everybody must feel it. Everybody must benefit from it. And that's why I think the language is very important. We want people to be able to speak to the computer in their language, in their dialect, mixing English, Hindi, Tamil, whatever the needs to be done. I think that's a big thing. And then I think making agents work for people. I think if you can make agents work for people, then it means more inclusion because they can get complex things done because you're hiding all the sophistication behind the agent. So I think there are a lot of things we can do which will which we'll you'll see now in the coming years. We already have three or four examples in agriculture, in healthcare, in language, in you know education, in electricity. We have a very good example of P2P trading. So I think all these are examples of how AI will actually benefit people and then it'll I think as to Dario's point India is a country which is very positive about technology in general and AI in particular and we need to take advantage of that and not let them down by giving them truly transformative applications using AI which you will see in the next two to three years.

23:33 >> Nan Dario, thank you so much. What a lovely conversation. >> Thank you. Thank you. Don't scrape there's no audio. >> Thank you so much Mr. Nandanda Nilakani and Mr. Dario Amote and thank you Rahul Matan for moderating it. Well, it was quite