AI a Double-edged Sword, Need To Sharpen Edge of Opportunity: Top Science Advisor

New Delhi: Artificial Intelligence is a double-edged sword, and the governance objective should be to sharpen the edge of opportunity while blunting the edge of risk, the government’s top science advisor said on Monday.”Digital penetration has increased, and children are increasingly exposed to AI-driven platforms.

“We still do not fully know the long-term effects of growing up with AI companions, personalised learning apps, algorithm-driven feeds and synthetic media,” Principal Scientific Adviser Ajay Kumar Sood said in the national capital.

He also noted that more evidence is needed to understand how these tools impact a child’s development, mental health and education over time.

At a session at the ongoing AI Impact Summit in the national capital, he mentioned that AI is more present in children’s daily lives through learning tools, content platforms and different models.

This creates a governance responsibility to ensure that children can benefit from AI’s potential for learning and inclusion while being protected from harms that scale up quickly in the digital environment, Sood said.

The session was on ‘AI and Children: Turning Principles into Practice for Safe, Inclusive, and Empowering AI’.

“AI is a double-edged sword. The governance objective should be to sharpen the edge of opportunity while blunting the edge of risk,” he said, adding that on the positive side, AI can support more personalised pedagogy by helping children learn at their own pace and also provide them with timely feedback beyond classroom hours.

At the same time, Sood also flagged the need to avoid over-reliance on AI tools since they can weaken critical thinking, independent problem solving and learning.

“The need to embed child-specific safeguards and guardrails into the governance framework is not a choice, but it is a must.

“Future generation should not be a victim of today’s technology,” he said.