Vigilance, not pause, answer to AI risks: IBM India & South Asia MD | Tech News

No form of technology should be “artificially paused” and the need is to stay vigilant and think ahead on how to work with AI, so that innovation isn’t stifled while the right governance and usage are built around it, IBM India and South Asia Managing Director Sandip Patel said on Tuesday.

In an interview to PTI, Patel said IBM India has always been a critical part of global operations, not only because the company continues to participate in the growth market here, but also because it is a “hotbed of innovation”.

Innovations from India can be scaled and applied anywhere in the world, he said, pointing to Indian innovations such as UPI.

Citing a specific IBM innovation, Patel said the company was “very privileged” to be a part of the creation of YONO, the digital platform run by SBI. He called it a fairly unique proposition that has emerged from India and can be applied around the world.

As AI scales, IBM expects to keep participating in the growth story with India as a strong base, Patel emphasised.

On the global chatter around harms of AI and fear of catastrophic outcomes for humanity, Patel said AI should be seen as “augmented” and not artificial intelligence.

Vigilance is important as more intelligence gets built into technology, he said adding some level of human oversight is always necessary.

“I don’t think any form of technology needs to be artificially paused. I think we just have to be vigilant and think ahead to see how do we work with it so that innovation isn’t stifled but we are building the right kind of governance and usage around it, and that is what all of us have a challenge to do,” Patel said.

On autonomous AI agents, he said the risks are real — they come from bad actors who will get worse, rogue AI agents, as well as vulnerabilities in open source (which makes up about 90 per cent of an enterprise’s technology footprint).

Regarding jobs, Patel said the advent of every technology has changed the nature of work. A chartered accountant himself, he recalled manually ticking audit entries by hand with a pen until automation pushed him towards analytics that drove greater value for clients.

Some jobs will go away, as is the case with any technology, but new jobs and capabilities will also be created, and people will have to skill for them, Patel said.

“The question should not be about what is going to happen to jobs. It is what is the skilling imperative, that’s important today,” he said.

IBM has announced Bharat Core, a set of India-specific connectors and tools that sits on top of its Sovereign Core platform.

“Bharat Core sits on top of Sovereign Core as a set of connectors and tools.. 20 to 25 different tools and connectors that enable us to connect sovereign core to India-specific capabilities like Aadhaar and so on. So this is something which is truly groundbreaking for India because sovereign…and what I refer to as now ‘digital swaraj’ is becoming real.

“So sovereign core, but with India specific components becomes very real,” he said.

Sovereignty, he said, has moved beyond data residency to operational and technological sovereignty.

Patel further said IBM will also release a white paper on a ‘reference architecture’ for a sovereign AI stack.

Built with the Andhra Pradesh government and partners BharatGen and NxtGen, he said “we’ve actually created a working reference architecture that enables a sovereign AI stack, which can be used by any state government, any central, any government entity, or for clients, both in India and anywhere around the world”.

Speaking at a conference later, Patel said eternal vigilance is the need of the hour, and focus has to be on how platforms and systems are protected.

He said while the promise of AI is “exciting,” the vulnerabilities it opens up, can make its prospects frightening. The regulations cannot be the only solution, he said and noted that having the right checks and balances, and accountability would be key.

To another question, Patel said that while supply chains are indeed stretched around the world, the impact hasn’t been seen “as critically” in core technology in India.

“So yes, there are, I think, supply chain issues around the world. I haven’t seen that impact the environment and day-to-day functioning of our business as much…it’s something that we have to keep an eye on,” Patel added.