Accelerating towards a more inclusive society with AI and Blockchain

In a career spanning 26 years,Samiranhas held leadership roles at McKinsey, Microsoft, IBM, Dun & Bradstreet, and TCS. He is on the global panel of MIT Technology Review, a TEDx speaker, a Forbes Technology Council member, and an AI & Blockchain thought leader.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, normally characterized by the utilization of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, 3D printing, blockchain, Internet of Things, and 5G, has ushered in a new era of economic disruption with uncertain socio-economic consequences, especially for the Global South.

Samiran Ghosh has worked at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain, especially in the global south. As the Chief Digital Advisor at Microsoft, he worked on platforms like the Connected Vehicle, Digital Agriculture, and Smart Cities. These initiatives all had undercurrents of massive societal impact. Most recently, at Aadhaar, he helped develop the Application Authentication Framework, which allows key stakeholders to engage with each other in the UIDAI ecosystem. He is a regular contributor in leading journals and a guest lecturer in various Indian universities.

Given his expertise, I interviewed him to find out a bit more about the role technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain can play to enhance and leapfrog communities and the societal issues they can create.

The broad field of AI can be a key factor in solving a variety of global problems. Let us look at one area heavily using AI — autonomous vehicles. Experts predict that commute via self-driving cars will result in up to 90% fewer accidents; more efficient ride-sharing will reduce the number of cars on the road by up to 75%, and smart traffic lights will reduce wait times by 40% and overall travel time by 26%. Even if part of this comes true, it has far-reaching implications for climate change, the environment, pollution, road safety, insurance, fuel consumption, and other issues. Another interesting case is that the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) uses custom speech models and Microsoft technology to improve the accuracy of real-time captions for students who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. The examples are many, and the possibilities of AI are endless.

Coming to Blockchain. In broad numbers, 1 in 7 people worldwide is without any identity making it impossible for them to access goods and services. More troubling is that nearly half of the world’s children under the age of 5 — and over 600 million children under 14 years old — do not have a birth certificate or official proof of their identity. These children are “invisible” to social programs designed to protect them. Instead, they are easy prey to human traffickers — sold into modern slavery or harvested for their organs.

There is a dire need for a secure, self-sovereign digital identity that is scalable. I believe blockchain will do for digital identity what Netscape did for the internet in the 90s. It can provide an identity to the nameless and faceless people worldwide to better target developmental programs towards them. And this is just one area it can impact: others being agriculture, human rights, financial inclusion, environment, etc.

The development and deployment of AI and blockchain hold tremendous promise for much of the world, including the global south.

Artificial Intelligence — The Baby Come Back campaign in China and the work of the Snow Leopard Trust using AI are classic examples of the benefits of tech in the global south.

It is estimated that every year, 250 million people around the world are affected by floods, also costing billions of dollars in damages. Flood forecasting models can predict when and where a flood might occur but the severity of the event. Google started these flood forecasting efforts in India, where 20% of global flood-related fatalities occur by partnering with India’s Central Water Commission to get the data needed to roll out early flood warnings on a pilot basis.