IMF thanks PM Modi for placing AI democratisation at summit's heart

IMF MD Kristalina Georgieva praised PM Narendra Modi for prioritising the democratisation of AI at the AI Impact Summit, highlighting India's digital infrastructure and youthful population as key advantages for embracing the technology.

IMF Chief Lauds AI Democratisation Focus

International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva on Friday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for placing the democratisation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the heart of this summit. "Thank you for placing the democratisation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the heart of this summit," Georgieva told reporters at the AI Impact Summit.

She also thanked the French President Emmanuel Macron "for taking AI on such a productive journey".

Earlier, while speaking in a panel discussion at the Summit, Georgieva said, "You are fortunate that your country invested in public digital infrastructure, removing barriers to entrepreneurship, and has a youthful, energetic, innovative population embracing AI."

The IMF chief added, "Countries are positioned differently. Some countries have more demand for AI skills than supply, while others have more supply than demand, and some have neither. So we have to work on multiple fronts based on concrete assessments of conditions in countries and localities."

She said the IMF will continue to work with countries to understand what is happening and how the organisation can project policies for the future.

Key Conclusions for a New World

"I would make three conclusions so far, and of course, we have to be agile in how we look at AI. The first is that education has to be revamped for a new world. People have to learn how to learn, not just learn specific skills. Second, there has to be support for those in local economies where the labour market is changing dramatically. There has to be social protection and social support, so they don't feel what happened with industrial workers in the United States when their jobs were exported overseas," Georgieva said.

"Third, it is very important that we look at the overall enabling environment. Why, in some places, AI makes things faster and in others it doesn't. What we find is not very surprising. Some parts of the economy and society are naturally better positioned because they are already part of the digital world, where there is more demand. Entrepreneurship is more dominant," the IMF chief added.

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