Panellists at the session on ‘Why does Understanding AI Matter to the World we Live in?’ held on Tuesday.
| Photo Credit: Akhila Easwaran
At The Hindu Huddle on Campus held on Tuesday, in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras’ oratory club, students engaged in a panel discussion on the topic ‘Why does Understanding AI Matter to the World we Live in?’
The session was moderated by John Xavier, Technology Editor, The Hindu, who explored the growing reliance on large language models (LLMs), open weights, copyright infringement, and the role of creativity in the age of generative artificial intelligence (AI).
When Mr. Xavier asked how AI is shaping individual lives and society, Ashish Srivastava said a lot of their day-to-day interactions were largely from social media, where AI had been integral part of every domain.
Leelakrishna Ruthvik Chivukula, another panellist, spoke on the use of LLMs in their academic work and preparations. “The human element is not completely eliminated but tools, such as Perplexity, have strengthened our subject knowledge even before we get to preparation,” he said.
Sumedh Chatterjee pointed out AI’s far-reaching influence across student life, but raised concern about its energy footprint. “We are a country that is now discussing climate change, yet these LLMs consume significant energy, which is a massive part of everyday life now,” he said.
Rajagopal C. Subramaniam observed that LLMs were here to stay owing to their ability to reduce redundancy and cut down on time while moving more towards goals. “Recently, what I observed is that there is a lot of funding going into AI research. It is because the commercialisation of AI — the potential of attracting either new customers or building better products is so high, that everybody from governments to huge Corporate companies want to get into this,” he said.
The panel also tackled questions on AI-generated content versus copyright. Ashish Srivastava said copyright law was largely subjective.
“What counts as fair use is up to interpretation and, more specifically, up to domain level interpretation.” On the question of creativity, the panel members spoke for and against AI in the creative space.
“When we talk about creativity, we realise these LLMs have been trained over massive data, so uniqueness will not be an aspect of AI-generated content, as they tend to follow patterns,” said Mr. Chivukula.
Published – April 30, 2025 01:00 am IST