AI will democratise professions: PTR at VIT convocation

Minister Palanivel Thiyaga Rajan on Friday stated that artificial intelligence (AI) would drastically alter the world of work, restoring the emphasis on education on profound knowledge, morality, and civic sense.

Addressing the 13th annual convocation of VIT Chennai, he said that the previous decades had witnessed engineers entering IT and software, but AI is altering the trend.

"Machines can already code and do most IT work themselves. What we will require are individuals with sciences, humanities, law, and ethics qualifications - areas which are not substitutable by machines," he pointed out, adding, "Just as the internet democratized knowledge, AI will democratize careers.". You won't have to learn a difficult programming language anymore, the machine will learn it but the task will be to instruct it what to do, and to make sense of its output in a responsible manner.

Pointing out disparities in education, he said that in India, southern states are different from many of the northern states where children are outside the schooling system.

"If India targets 50% gross enrolment in higher education, it has to first achieve near universal elementary education," he emphasized.

In regard to women's contribution to the workforce, he underscored that the economic growth of TN in large measure is due to women's participation, particularly in the areas of electronics, footwear, and textiles.

Citing VIT's convocation figures, he noted that though boys outnumber girls overall-with 4,897 boys against 1,682 girls at the graduation level-women outstrip men at the research level.

"At the PhD level, of 113 graduates, there are 73 women indicating 2:1 ratio. It is a reflection of a healthy society," he added. VIT Chancellor G Viswanathan had preceded him in declaring the convocation open, lamenting that India's gross enrolment ratio in higher education is merely 28% as compared to 60-90% in advanced countries.

He called for increased budgetary spending, observing that India spends hardly 3% of its GDP on education. In the current year, 6,468 UG and PG students and 113 PhD graduates were awarded degrees, and 39 gold medals were presented.