Brothers look to harness AI for the greater good

As debate swirls on whether artificial intelligence will be a boon or a curse for humanity, two Indian-American entrepreneur brothers are out to ensure the emerging technologies don’t just benefit the richest in society. Romesh and Sunil Wadhwani this week launched what is billed as the world’s first nonprofit institute dedicated to using AI to improving lives of poor farmers, rural health care workers or teachers in communities with scant resources.

“Our focus is how many tens of millions of lives can we improve in the next five or 10 years. Where AI goes in 100 years, it will go,” said Sunil Wadhwani.

The entrepreneur brothers, who have a series of lucrative startups to their name, have committed $30 million over 10 years to the Wadhwani AI institute, established in Mumbai with the Indian government as a partner.

Areas targeted at the outset will include health care, education, agriculture and urban infrastructure.

The project’s founders hope AI could help nurses in rural areas with diagnoses, advise how to optimise crops, translate textbooks into various languages as needed or even spot signs students might be on paths to dropping out.

“AI is a game-changing technology,” said Sunil Wadhwani, who is based in Pittsburgh as a trustee for Carnegie Mellon University.

“A lot of developing countries are getting left behind; US and China are leapfrogging ahead.”

Students from New York University and the University of Southern California will travel to Mumbai to collaborate, while the brothers also plan to partner with players in Silicon Valley, where Romesh Wadhwani is based.

The ethical issues raised by AI — from its potential to destroy jobs to the power it could exert over people’s lives — will be front of mind, according to institute chief P Anandan, a former Microsoft Research director.

“It has the potential to be used badly, or run away on Anandan said of AI.

“At the end of the day, you are going to manage that by being aware of it from the start and applying it where intentions are good.”

Internet giants have been investing heavily in creating software to help machines think more like people, boosted by super-fast computer processing power and access to mountains of data to analyse.

Sunil Wadhwani has meanwhile promised an “aggressive” timeline at the brothers’ eponymous institute, with testing of potential AI tools starting by the end of this year. its own,”