New Delhi: More Indians are positive about artificial intelligence products and are willing to accept that products using artificial intelligence will profoundly change their lives in the next three to five years than Americans, a study by Stanford University has found.The Artificial Intelligence Index 2023 released by the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence tracks and visualises data related to artificial intelligence. In a section devoted to the diversity of opinions surrounding AI by country, the index analysis a 2022 IPSOS survey, to find that Indians are the third largest group of people to believe that products and services using AI have more benefits than drawbacks.At 71%, Indians are third only to Chinese, 78% of whom believe that AI positives outweigh drawbacks and, Saudi Arabians for whom the number is 76%.Only 35% of sampled Americans (among the lowest of surveyed countries) agreed that products and services using AI had more benefits than drawbacks, in comparison.Technologically advanced countries like South Korea (62%), Japan (42%) and Germany (37%) all had fewer people feeling positive about AI than India.Generally, sentiment relating to AI products and services seems to be strongly correlated within specific countries, the Index notes.The report observes that Chinese respondents seem to feel among the most positive about AI products and services: 87% of Chinese respondents claim that AI products and services make their lives easier, 76% report trusting companies that use AI as much as other companies, and only 30% say that AI products and services using AI make them nervous.Conversely, American respondents are among the most negative when it comes to AI. Only 41% claim that AI products and services make their lives easier, 35% report trusting AI companies as much as other companies, and 52% report that AI products and services make them feel nervous.Indians are in the middle but definitely swing towards the more trusting side.72% Indians (against 63% Americans) report that they have a good grasp of what AI is. As many as 74% accept that products and services using AI will profoundly impact their lives in the next three to five years. This corresponding figure is 46% for Americans.When it comes to impact of AI products and services in the last three to five years, 67% of Indians report that their lives have profoundly changed while the number is as low as 35% in the US.As many as 53% of Indians feel nervous at the prospect of products and services using AI. In the US, the number is slightly less at 52%.But while 68% of Indians trust companies using AI as much as others which do not, the corresponding figure is 35% in the US.The report also documents the share of AI journal publications over the past 12 years by geographic area. This year’s AI Index included India in recognition of the increasingly important role it plays in the AI ecosystem. China has remained the leader throughout, with 39.8% in 2021, followed by the European Union and the United Kingdom (15.1%), then the United States (10.0%).The share of Indian publications too has been steadily increasing, from 1.3% in 2010 to 5.6% in 2021.As of 2022, a large proportion of GitHub AI projects were contributed by software developers in India (24.2%) .The next most represented geographic area was the European Union and the United Kingdom (17.3%), and then the United States (14.0%). The share of American GitHub AI projects has been declining steadily since 2016.A GitHub project is a collection of files that can include the source code, documentation, configuration files, and images that constitute a software project. Since 2011, the total number of AI-related GitHub projects has steadily increased, growing from 1,536 in 2011 to 347,934 in 2022.As of 2022, the three countries or regions with the highest ‘AI skill penetration’ rates were India followed by the United States and Germany.
