AI can collect data, never capture human experience: Anand Mahindra

ChatGPT and other such Generative Artificial Intelligence (Gen AI) tools can only aggregate data but never capture the human experience, Anand Mahindra, the Chairman of Mahindra and Mahindra, said at the Global Investors Meet 2024 in Tamil Nadu on Monday (January 8).

Mahindra said he had tried ChatGPT to write his keynote address. However, though it gave a perfect story based on accurate data, it could not capture the “human experience of being in Tamil Nadu”, he pointed out.

“I used ChatGPT to find out why investing in Tamil Nadu would be a great idea. It gave good responses like robust infrastructure, skilled workforce, well-developed ports, good educational system power, and government support. I could have had a perfectly drafted speech drafted by ChatGPT to deliver here but everything that ChatGPT does is aggregate data and what it doesn’t do and that a human being can do is capture the human experience of being in Tamil Nadu,” he said.

Human wisdom

Mahindra, who has often been vocal about the dangers of AI, reiterated his belief in human wisdom rather than AI. “I’m ultimately a believer not in Artificial Intelligence but in human wisdom and the human wisdom that comes from experience. When you trust your own experience, a very different speech emerges. AI is a very superficial collector of data. However, life, and truth, is not just about data. It is more about the story we experience and we create,” he added.

As debates rage across the world over whether AI can steal human jobs, concerns have also been rising over fake images, fake profiles, and fake news being created with the help of AI. Mahindra has in the past warned of a “scary” future with such fakes.

“The quality of human capital matters the most. That is why I’m not at all gloomy about the prognostication that AI will one day take over from humans…AI will become a companion to creative minds, but not its masters,” he said.