The Dawn of The AI Era: Global Cordiality or Global Adversity

Artificial intelligence (AI) is emerging as a global force, set to transform the lives of all individuals, at personal, social and professional fronts. There is expectation of further growth spurt in the AI-augmented tools. The current study involved focus group discussion with three Indian participants, in the age range of 28 years to 39 years. They were employed in three different fields- corporate organization, education and Psychology. Online discussions were conducted to get their perspectives regarding the current use of AI in their respective fields, its future scope and applications, legal and ethical issues related to it. Thematic analysis was done on their responses. The participants mentioned that currently limited use of AI tools is being carried out in their jobs as many practical, ethical and privacy issues remain unanswered. The participants were well aware about the extensive scope, growth and application of AI. The concerns voiced by them related to work-life imbalance, limited time to learn new skills, junior staff being allocated very basic networking tasks, and employees being content working within their comfort zone while using their traditional modes of working. However, they were receptive towards incorporating new technology to ease off work pressure and to meet time deadlines. They felt that government and organizations were failing to invest in training their employees to upgrade their AI related skills. Their suggestion to overcome this lacuna was that, government bodies must design ethical and legal guidelines to initiate the entire process of training individuals, from school level, to upskill them and facilitate the optimal use of AI tools.