We are all witnessing the growth of artificial intelligence globally and how it is transforming the work of humans. For the past decades, the world is going through a transition phase where new technologies are being invented and adopted in the operations and almost every activity of companies. With the advancement in artificial intelligence, the technology is now under the watch of governments across the globe! Many countries are now shifting their focus on developing machine learning and artificial intelligence and introducing these technologies in their policy-making and decision-making. It is projected that by the year 2030, artificial intelligence will successfully produce a global economic output of nearly $13 trillion. This will boost the overall global GDP at a year-on-year rate of 1.2%. These astonishing rates are increasing the trust of governments and making them introduce these technologies in order to have a more accurate and efficient process of policymaking. Developers from across the world are working towards inventing a capable AI model. A great example of this is from Belgium where a man has been working towards developing a fully functioning AI model which aims to ensure that politicians while attending a session are concentrating and completely attentive. In a case where the politicians are seen to be not showing focus in the discussion, the system is being trained in such a way that it will directly tag the politicians and mention their names on Twitter handles!
We all have experienced how chatbots are taking over the customer service space and making their experience unique and hassle-free. This technology is now under trial by the government of South Africa. The government aims to assist its members of parliament with the help of chatbots. With the agreement of the inter-parliamentary union, the main agenda behind these chatbots is to cater to the MP’s queries which involves answering basic questions like meeting time, venue, and other miscellaneous doubts. Taking a leap forward in this revolution, The US has already successfully implemented this technology in their decision-making and other tasks. They have used automation while segregating various bills, laws, and amendments. While AI and automation are implemented and trusted by them, still this technology needs human intelligence for maintenance and corrections in the system.
Switzerland has also started using artificial intelligence in its decision-making with the help of robots. The think tank of Swiss foreign policy Foraus and Swissnex, are brainstorming ideas on how to implement AI for the country. Hence, for the federal council, ‘AI-Bundesrat’ was introduced. The presenter of this idea and former board member of Foraus, Luca Brunner, mentioned that the capabilities of AI-Bundesrat will successfully grow the department of Big Data, at the same time assist the government in making more informed as well as accurate, and efficient decisions. For instance, the system can assist in providing data that could help study the effect of a policy and also accurately give a budget needed for recommending a policy.
Brunner has also stated that with the adoption of artificial intelligence, the Swiss political system has the ability to transform the system more democratic. The relationship between the people and the government will strengthen as they will be able to directly approach them via online mediums. With the help of AI- Bundesrat, the voice of the citizens will be heard directly by the parliament and the factual data will also be available publicly.
According to the World Parliaments Report 2022, the usage of social media is on a hike and is expected to witness further growth by 45%. The use of smartphones is also at a rapid growth rate of 30%. E-petition systems are also getting more popular amongst the public with an overall growth rate of 23%. The report also states that MPs are rapidly implementing technology with the aim to revolutionize policymaking with the assistance of tools such as social media and instant messaging.
The ‘Speech2Write’ system has been adopted by the Netherlands House of Representatives. This system assists the Parliamentary reporting officer with the ability to write reports from translating voices. This system has an inbuilt speech recognition along with automated editing capable of eliminating filler words along with advising grammatical errors and editing decisions.
Japan is popular across the globe for its advanced technology. The country is in the process of inventing a fully functional model which will be capable of making parliamentary videos available via google search. The National Graduate Institute for Policy Studios, Japan (GRIPS) is also in the process of developing a system by combining analysis of audio and visual information with speech recognition.
Now the real question is what is the position of India in this global transition of technology. Well, we all know that the parliamentary setup of India is one of the most unique ones as the country is home to rich cultures and diversity. The population density of the country is one of the major reasons why policymakers are unable to address the issues of the entire nation. The governments do want to cater to the public’s needs, a great example of this is the ongoing Central Vista Project. However, even after this effort, it will not be practically possible for the government to take up all the issues in the parliament.
This is where AI can change the ballgame! With the ability of Artificial Intelligence, it can provide possible solutions. We have already witnessed the capability of the technology in other countries and how they are implementing AI in order to be more productive and efficient in policy-making and taking decisions. India is also on its way to making a leap in introducing technology in their parliamentary activities. The country is implementing a scheme ‘One Nation, One Application’. Under this scheme, a portal has already been developed named The National E-Vidhan which was developed in order to cater to two phases. In its first phase, the main focus of the portal will be on replacing paper works and making all the parliamentary activities completely paperless at the same capturing maximum information. Talking about the second phase, the main focus will be on automation and deploying Artificial intelligence in the working of parliament.
According to the reports by the Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, this portal has been successfully adopted by Himachal Pradesh and is being tested as their pilot project. This portal is also capable of providing a service that will be able to record the time allotted to a speaker and then gather the information followed by displaying results. With this portal, the Members of Parliament will be able to submit their queries on the portal as well as collaborate on their queries and provide one final list. The system is so efficient that it can suggest, segregate and modify the bills as well. However, the parliament will be fully efficient and productive with the advent of artificial intelligence.
Now we should understand what can India learn and improve from other countries and their working models. We have to first understand that the market to which India caters is huge and by introducing artificial intelligence, it will be much simplified. With the implementation of NeVa, the process of accumulating data from parliament and Aadhar data has already been simplified for the Union Government. What the country should adopt is a more inclusive and more efficient approach. If we take the example of Brazil, the country has deployed an AI system named Ulysses, which is enabled to bring transparency and better participation of citizens. Ulysses has the capability of segregating documents and on top of that mentioning them more effectively within their web portal of public-facing. This feature makes the website equipped with the ability of auto recommending and providing content after analyzing their viewer’s interests.
We all know that India is so diverse that the problem it holds varies and are as a matter of fact different for every citizen. With Artificial Intelligence, India can use the technology in the most dynamic way and develop a model inspired by AI – Bundesrat. The country holds a massive number of 245 members in a parliament. With the advent of artificial intelligence, the country could give more representation to the citizens and can make a better and much more efficient change which will not only improve policy-making but will also give room to more efficiency and fair democracy. in
Author- Toshank Bhardwaj, AI Content Creator
