Infrastructuring AI in the Postcolony

The root of all evil is a premature policy optimization.

In the few decades of the history of computing in India there have been some spurts of proactivity, but by and large other than a large bodyshop in IT, we have been comfortable in a mode largely reactive to global developments, with an industry making negligible contribution to computing technologies. Just after liberalisation, C. R. Subramanian had undertaken a long-view analysis of the matter in his "India and The Computer" - with many of his suggestions ringing true to folks in AI today. Let me therefore reconstruct below the difficulties that were noted over 30 years ago for large scale "harmonious development" (not support and maintainance) of computing and software products in India:

1. The domestic markets in India are too small. To make a mark, we've to address the international high-technology demand, which means society being at the cutting-edge of technology and R&D. Considering quick internet based distribution, open-sourcing and market standardisation, any catch-up oriented strategy would have to fight against strong network effects as well. This will be very hard for domestic industry to do in presence of established foreign competition without some protections until they reach a certain stage of technological and business maturity. 

2. Subramanian clearly recommends 'standardisation first' to be one possible technology strategy, but he also says, "...there is a total lack of concern for this at the highest levels of the administration. Political support has not even been sought for this vital step." Based on my own interactions with the Bureau of Indian Standards and other IT sector actors, 30 years later Subramanian's characterisation of embedding political vision in India's technical standardisation strategy has not changed much - this affects the nature and quality of our participation in global standards bodies as well.   

3. He says, "the private sector in India does not traditionally invest in high-risk, new technology areas." One of the main reasons for this, perhaps owing to our socialist traditions, is that the industry actors (at least the smaller ones) are not seen with much trust and respect. Hans-Peter Brunner notes that 1984 was perhaps the first time since independence when domestic industry actors in India were given on paper a “respectful place”. The little industry guy is not really accorded the respect of a 'partner' in public-private interactions, not to mention of the babu expectations of profound subservience. Resultingly, the industry has stuck to relatively risk averse and by-the-book activities, having neither the financial incentives nor the resourcefulness for high-technology risks/innovation. 

4. Infrastructural ownership, he says is a "must from the point of view of national security and related developments in the space and defense areas. To allow the World Bank a say in the matter is inviting foreign interference in domestic technology aspirations related to self-reliance." Considering our situation in the semiconductor supply chains and an unwritten policy to export brains (the human infrastructure), and now also with data and platforms, who really has digital infrastructural ownership in India?

5. He notes that the "inconsistency in the various policies — fiscal, licensing, technology development and technology import - prevent harmonious development". The natural evangelist of technology in government anywhere is the military, which faces a policy conundrum in India between satisfying its immediate requirements for finished products vs sticking it out for the development of an "indigenous" industry - unless in view of Atmanirbharta it could take a more strategic role in domestic technology sector. I may remind the reader here that the true union of science with industry happened only in the WWII, which in the US resulted into a cultural osmosis where the military picked up management perspectives and businesses picked up military ones.            

But how soon can these difficulties be overcome? In a world where technology infrastructures are often intermingled with social and political imaginations, a mere exorcism by diplomacy and public relations cannot address India's currently vacuous strategy for technological leadership. Our national security as well as digital technology governance being run predominantly through a policing lense has not halped our cause either. Firstly, I must say that it is not the technical but the management standards in our organisations (including govt and startups) which need to catch up with the engineering talent.   

Thence, the AI hype can be appealing to broken institutions - and can lead quickly into a procurement mentality where run-of-the-mill, off-the-shelf analytics and interaction products (even LLMs wrapped into brands) are acquired in the name of promoting and enabling the AI research ecosystem. That is like getting a website made to enable the development of future internet. Shoppers have to shop, but without deeply trusting your own people, letting them not go, and persevering with them on novel ideas, the technological catch-up would not end very soon.

Consider also, that organisational innovations are needed to integrate technology as a doctrinal component at the highest levels. We do not need an "AI policy" as much as we need to formulate a multi-stakeholder industrial policy that integrates and addresses different sector-specific demands (and expectations) of deploying automation, data processing and cyber security. This is a must for national competitiveness, security and defense, and cannot simply be exorcised by witty diplomats. 

Mbembe writes on his experience in postcolonial Africa, that often the actual development of infrastructure has more to do with access to government contracts and rewarding patron-client networks, and not its technical function or nuances - "this is why roads disappear and bridges go to nowhere"- as we might sometimes relate as well. Now imagine a super-intelligent AI being developed and deployed in the purview of a similar organisational paradigm. If that is the sovereign national discretion, so be it, but it might be useful to make available trustworthy infrastructural components - standardised and open building blocks, both logical and physical, that can be integrated (and disintegrated) at base/local levels as required by anyone - as the local is not very far from the global here - for pure technology competition, for all practical purposes, implies an overall escalation of force with non-lethal effects.