The AI Revolution in Rural India

(Agence France-Presse Bangalore, December 3) 27-year-old Chandmani Kerketta works as a night shift data annotator after farming during the day, becoming one of the growing number of rural laborers in India contributing to the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution. Working from her home in Jharkhand, Eastern India, Kerketta is an example of the AI-driven workforce transformation that the Indian government hopes will improve people's lives and encourage more women to enter the workforce. In terms of machine learning, this job is fundamental yet indispensable: data annotation, labeling, and quality checking. For instance, this type of information is crucial for applications like self-driving cars. Kerketta, who tends to tomatoes and peas, says, "This job helps me complete my studies and allows me to contribute to the farming efforts at home." She comes from an indigenous community recognized by the Indian Constitution and is the first university student in her family. Kerketta initially worked as an office assistant at a data processing company in Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand, where she observed her colleagues using computers. Later, she took computer courses at a local school and became one of about 200,000 data annotators in rural and small-town India. According to data from the U.S. company Scry AI, this number accounts for about half of the global data annotation workforce and is continuously increasing. Rural data annotators work from home or in simple centers with internet access, and an 8-hour shift can involve annotating hundreds of images, videos, and documents. Having already obtained a degree in history, Kerketta states, "After finishing my night shift data annotation work, I take a short nap and then help out in the fields. In Jharkhand, farming is everything." Ambitious India will host an international AI summit next month. The Institute for Human-Centered AI at Stanford University ranks global AI capabilities based on over 40 indicators, including patents and private funding, and India has surpassed South Korea and Japan, ranking third in the world. India is no stranger to playing a supporting role for global tech companies. In recent months, American tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon have announced billions of dollars in investments to build the world's largest data centers in India. Regardless of how complex the systems are, every AI model relies on vast amounts of labeled data; the more accurate the labeling, the better the technical performance. While automation driven by AI may eliminate some jobs, it will also create new opportunities. Sridhar Mitta, founder of AI data company NextWealth and former CTO of tech giant Wipro, says, "Micro-entrepreneurship will be the next stage of development for small towns. There may not be another billion-dollar company, but useful things for the local community will be created."