OpenAI’s big test in Indian schools
Teachers have always been accorded a high pedestal in Indian society. From ancient times, the revered Guru-Shishya tradition elevated teachers to the status of divinity, embodied in the timeless Sanskrit shloka, “Gurur Brahma, Gurur Vishnu…” In the age of rapidly advancing technology, however, a new question is emerging in India’s education corridors: will we soon be speaking of ‘Gurur-AI’ in our classrooms?
This question has jumped from abstract debates to real-world urgency with OpenAI’s recent announcement of a landmark initiative in India: the distribution of 500,000 paid ChatGPT licences for schools and technical institutes, packaged with teacher training and research tie-ups. For a country where education is both an enormous challenge and a national priority, the move signals a defining moment. Are Indian schools ready to embrace AI?
Promise of a digital revolution in classrooms: OpenAI’s India initiative is ambitious. By placing advanced AI tools in the hands of teachers and learners, it promises a future where personalized tutoring is not a privilege of the elite but a possibility for every child. Imagine large classrooms where attention spans vary but AI systems adapt to every child’s unique learning pace; or a rural school where a teacher in rural Bihar uses the same AI-powered tool used in Bangalore’s top engineering college.
For teachers, burdened with administrative tasks, AI’s deployment could mean a chance to reclaim what is most precious in teaching: authentic human interaction. Rather than being replaced, teachers stand to have their skills enhanced, given the time and space made by AI tools taking over routine tasks to focus on mentorship, creativity and critical thinking.
Crucially, OpenAI’s collaboration with IIT Madras ensures that AI integration will be grounded in India-specific research, not just imported assumptions. Partnerships with the ministry of education, AICTE and ARISE anchor this initiative within the National Education Policy 2020’s broader vision of digitization and inclusion.
Governance gaps: Yet, optimism should not blind us to the risks. India’s patchwork of outdated laws intersects with one of the most transformative technologies in human history.
The Information Technology Act, 2000, India’s primary digital law, does not even mention artificial intelligence. As a result, regulators are forced to stretch provisions designed for early-internet-era challenges—impersonation, hacking and obscenity—to fit AI’s far more complex realities. And though progress is underway, such as the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA) of 2023 and parliamentary debates on algorithmic fairness, the country lacks a comprehensive, dedicated AI Act of the kind Europe has already adopted.
Bias and fairness in education: A key risk in deploying AI in Indian classrooms is algorithmic bias. Globally, AI systems have failed marginalized groups due to skewed training data. In education, this could translate to biased grading, discriminatory admissions or intrusive student monitoring. For a country as socio-economically diverse as India, an unfair algorithm risks cementing inequality rather than reducing it.
Europe has squarely faced this by labelling educational AI ‘high-risk’ and mandating independent audits. India will need similar regulation to ensure that an exam result or university admission is never tainted by the statistical ghosts of a biased dataset.
Privacy and consent: Indian parents may soon be asked to let AI systems collect their child’s personal data. Under the DPDPA, all minors’ data requires verified parental consent, a mechanism that risks being tied to Aadhaar or other sensitive identifiers. Without transparent practices, India could find itself mired in lawsuits and a public backlash over the handling of children’s personal information.
Copyright and intellectual property battles: In India, OpenAI is already facing lawsuits over the use of news and content without permission. With IT Rules (2021) mandating organizations to refrain from publishing information without legal rights to it, questions abound over whether AI-generated teaching material in schools could violate copyright law. Could a lesson plan generated by ChatGPT be tainted by an unresolved intellectual property claim? The answer remains unsettled, and Indian regulators will need to act fast.
The teacher’s role in the algorithmic age: Even if every policy hurdle is cleared, India must guard against one final risk: the black-box nature of advanced AI. Teachers and parents should never find themselves trusting Generative AI outputs blindly without understanding how systems reach those conclusions. Unlike Europe, which has legislated human oversight as non-negotiable, India has yet to create such guardrails. Unless reinforced, this opacity risks displacing the authority of the teacher.
Path ahead—Gurur-AI or Gurur-Teacher?: So, is India ready for AI in its schools? The answer is a measured ‘almost.’ Depending on whether India can craft robust rules to govern consent, protect student data, demand fairness, and ensure teachers remain the stewards of learning. If done right, AI will not dethrone teachers. It will elevate them, offering us a chance to merge the best of tradition and technology.
Perhaps then, ‘Gurur-AI’ will not rewrite the old shloka but update it—in recognition that the empowerment of education does not come from tools, but the wisdom with which we wield them.
The author is an independent privacy lawyer.
Post Comment