Is ChatGPT a Sreesanth fan? Does AI have bias? Techspectations sees engaging discussion

Kochi: Is ChatGPT, OpenAI’s celebrated generative artificial intelligence chatbot, a fan of former Indian cricketer S Sreesanth? Probably not. But the doubt was prompted by a response it gave to someone who asked about the Kerala-based pacer. The ChatGPT answer, according to the person who asked the question, was full of positive things about Sreesanth and there was only a token mention of the IPL betting scam which cut his career short.

The AI generated answer has left the person doubtful about the technology’s credibility. He wanted to know if ChatGPT or GenAI as a whole can be biased in their answers in their penchant for positiveness. The question was raised by a delegate of Techspectations 2025, Manoramaonline’s flagship digital summit, in Kochi on Friday during a panel discussion on the Power of Data: Unlocking Insights in the Age of Generative AI. It was pointed at Pankaj Rai, the Chief Data Analytics Officer of Aditya Birla Group.

Rai sounded more of a philosopher than a technocrat in his reply. “I believe we are all biased and we always remain biased. I don't think bias is bad. Bias gives us a point of view and opinion along. I don't want to make bias a bad word. Bias is given, I think AI allows us to measure it and then figure out how you want to use it,” he said.

He said, “AI is a boon because it can surface the biases allowing you to measure it and then eliminate it.”
The session saw more such intriguing discussion with four tech industry leaders from diverse backgrounds coming together.

Another delegate wanted to know from Sreekumar Pillai, Co-founder and Chief Technology Officer, Experion Technologies, how does his Thiruvananthapuram Technopark-based company identify the qualities of a candidate during recruitment in the age of GenAI when people increasingly use AI tools to polish their resume. Pillai had a straightforward answer. He said it is difficult to find a real talent from resumes alone and recently there have been many cases of fraud in recruitment. He said sometimes recruiters have to resort to tricks like asking about random questions about one’s family or personal matters to find if the candidate attending an interview is real or a proxy.

Earlier, during his opening remarks in the panel discussion, Pillai highlighted how most of the business organisations were struggling to interact with data. "I think the power of GenAI comes where you will be able to use some of the newer technologies out there where you can augment the real data from your database and use an LLM or a model to give you insights about your business. You can ask questions to the model and it will give you results rather than working with a static image of your dashboard. I think that is the way the generative AI will help you run your business,” he explained.

Aaron Rigby, Regional Director SEA & India, Taboola, spoke about the various products of his company which he described as a performance platform on the open web. “The DNA (of Taboola) is built on the back of analytical artificial intelligence. And now we're starting to dive further into GenAI, which is really exciting. At the core of our business is our algorithms which drive our content recommendations and our advertising recommendations. So we spend a lot of money in R and D in improving the data signals and improving all the information we collect from our network to make sure that our publishers are able to better understand their audiences and also for advertisers to target better,” he said.

The moderator of the session Kiruba Shankar wanted to know from Rigby the status of personalised advertising. Kiruba, from Chennai, gave a quick profile of his and asked if it was possible for an advertiser to target him when he is in Kochi. “They can. Are they doing it? No, they're not. I think that we're still at the stage of getting advertisers to understand what the power of kind of predictive and targeted audience and targeting is. I think where we see the future going from, how to kind of hyper personalize and really be precise in targeting, it's not just improving the data signals and the targeting capabilities, it's other vectors as well,” Rigby said.

Aditya Ganguli, Head of Data Science and AI, Tata Nexarc, spoke about how data analytics is being used to help MSMEs pursue better business. “If you want to go to a credit financial institution, you typically need a three-year annual revenue growth rate for you to be qualified as a person who can seek credit. But if you look at the GST government data, only 14% of MSMEs qualify for that. There are around 69 million MSMEs in India. MSMEs cannot be ignored because they are the bedrock of our workforce. And hence our data group decided that we need to do something to help grow the businesses, solve their problems and optimize the challenges by driving insights in the age of AI. AI is actually now going to be more of driving action from insights rather than just drawing insights,” he said.