In Conversation with Jaspreet Bindra

In an exclusive interview with Reputation Today, Jaspreet Bindra of The Tech Whisperer Ltd. shares his insights on JanAI’s potential to revolutionise India’s AI framework, diverging from systems like Aadhar and UPI. We also explore the impact of Generative AI on communication professionals and its integration with tools like Outlook and Excel, discussing its role in the future of work and professional development.

Hemant Gaule: In your recent article from the Hindustan Times based on how India’s AI model should take shape, could you explain how JanAI will make a difference in India, similar to the most commonly used Aadhar and UPI?

Jaspreet Bindra: The amazing success of the Indian Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) story is well known. Riding on IndiaStack, this digitisation at population scale has led to 1.4 billion Indians with a digital biometric identity with Aadhaar, simplified payments at scale, with UPI leading to almost half the world’s digital payments, the world’s largest vaccination campaign, and many other achievements. The true power of the stack has been realised by offering it as a Digital Public Good (DPG) – much like clean air, defence or law enforcement – so that it reaches each citizen; and making it open enables large companies and startups to build value and wealth on top of it. 

Services built on top of this Stack have considerably eased health care, logistics, e-commerce, government subsidies and have led to inclusive societal growth across the country. Innumerable startups have leveraged the open APIs of the Stack to create innovative and at-scale services for Indian citizens. IndiaStack is already growing global, with countries such as Singapore, France, United Arab Emirates, and others signing up. 

My proposition, however audacious it may seem, is that India should consider building Generative AI as a Digital Public Good – I call this JanAI or GenAI for the people. India could build its own BharatLLM: Trained on the rich data that IndiaStack generates, and finetuned for Indian languages and context to solve India-specific use cases and problems. JanAI could be a set of LLMs built as another layer of IndiaStack, where the key is that it will be offered as a public service. Thus, it will bridge the inevitable digital divide, and provide benefits for the entire population, much like Aadhar and UPI have done.

This will also give India the opportunity to build guardrails and safeguards around privacy, bias, and other ethical AI concerns, using Indian notions of collective and societal privacy and trust which are sometimes quite different from the western concept of individuality-oriented privacy. 

HG: According to you, how will the introduction of Generative AI bring an impact on the way communications professionals build reputation?

JB: GenAI tools like ChatGPT and others will pave the way for Communications professionals to get a lot of the basic work related to creation of content and frameworks out of the way. It can help brainstorm and ideate on campaigns. 

It is, however, for Communications professionals to be aware that while GenAI can form the base of an idea or campaign, the person herself must apply the appropriate lenses to ensure they suit the purpose of a client requirement. GenAI tends to ‘hallucinate’ or throw-up incorrect information, which would require a person with an understanding of the on-ground realities to manage. Another aspect to bear in mind are the ethical aspects of using information generated by GenAI – the information it generates is an amalgamation of that already available on the World Wide Web. 

HG: According to you, what are the positive changes that Generative AI can bring when it is infused with Outlook, PowerPoint, and Excel to the new era of technology?

JB: Some of the more obvious uses of GenAI in the Microsoft suite of offerings include content creation, analysis and visualisation of data, predictive analysis, creation of presentations, management of email, etc. However, the sky – and a person’s ability to apply GenAI – are the only things limiting the use cases of this technology. 

Getting basic tasks out of the way, would lead to enhanced productivity and efficiency, freeing up the person’s time for other, more strategic work, potentially reducing manpower costs and leading to overall cost-efficiency. 

It is important to note, however, that the successful integration of GenAI into these applications should consider ethical, privacy and security concerns. Ensuring transparency and accountability over AI-generated content is essential to harness the full potential of these technologies while mitigating potential risks.

HG: As you are focused on working towards the Future of Work and AI. How did Generative AI start a new era of communion using the most human interface of all that is language?

JB: Advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, particularly deep learning models like Transformer-based architectures (e.g., GPT-3), have improved the ability of AI systems to understand and generate human language. These models have billions of parameters, enabling them to capture complex linguistic patterns.

GenAI models have been used to develop chatbots and virtual assistants that can engage in natural, human-like conversations. These chatbots have found applications in customer support, information retrieval, and even therapy, providing users with a more intuitive and conversational interface.

GenAI has started a new era of communion using language to enable more natural and intuitive interactions with technology. It has the potential to enhance communication, improve productivity and make various aspects of daily life more accessible and efficient.

HG: As we know AI in general has somehow made our work easier in many areas. How can we make the correct use of AI when it comes to the professional level? Will it hinder our intellect as a professional in the long run of our career?

JB: As I like to say, a GenAI will not take your job; however, a person using GenAI is very likely to. It is in the interest of one’s own career that a Communications professional must be up to speed with developments in GenAI, and acquire the ability to use it effectively, understanding both the pros and the cons.


The responses above are from Jaspreet Bindra as shared with Reputation Today

Hemant Gaule
Hemant is an education leader based in Mumbai, India, and is passionate about education, policy, and media. After graduating from the Indian Institute of Management -Ahmedabad, he has counselled several private, social, political & government initiatives. He was a Co-founder & Director of Citizens of Accountable Governance, a team that spearheaded the national election campaign of India’s current Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi in 2014. After that, he has Co-founded (and is Dean of) India’s only institute dedicated to education and research in public relations – School of Communications & Reputation. In 2019 he became the first Indian to be conferred as a Fellow Accredited Public Relations Practitioners by ASEAN PR Network. In 2022, he was named among 40 Young Turks of India by Reputation Today Magazine. He can be reached at @HemantGaule on Twitter.

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