Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday called for greater and more effective use of artificial intelligence in governance and stressed the need to ensure
human intervention and judgement. He further called for exploring innovative ways of combining the capabilities of AI with human expertise. The remarks came while PM Modi chaired the third high-level meeting with Secretaries to the Government of India at his residence at 7, Lok Kalyan Marg on Thursday. During the meeting, the Prime Minister discussed the future action agenda of Ministries and Departments dealing with Infrastructure and Connectivity, Security and External Affairs, and Governance. Emphasising the transformative potential of AI, the Prime Minister urged officials to explore innovative ways of combining the capabilities of artificial intelligence with human expertise. He stressed that while AI can significantly enhance the efficiency of governance and decision-making, human judgement and intervention must continue to play a crucial role. The Prime Minister also underlined the need to break departmental silos, describing them as not merely an organisational challenge but also a problem of mindset. He said silos could exist both horizontally and vertically and called upon officials to take ownership of their responsibilities while working with a greater sense of collective belonging. Citing the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic and the West Asia crisis, PM Modi said government departments had demonstrated that effective coordination was possible when officials worked together towards a common objective. He called for such coordination mechanisms to become a natural part of the government’s work culture. Prime Minister also emphasised that data is a national asset and a resource for the future. He noted that the government invests resources in collecting, storing and managing data, but its full potential is not always realised because of departmental silos and fragmented systems. He pointed to differences in the manner in which data is collected and managed for various purposes, and called for finding solutions that enable greater interoperability and effective use of data.
