Shas­tri Boodan

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo has urged cit­i­zens to ex­er­cise greater cau­tion when con­sum­ing and shar­ing in­for­ma­tion on so­cial me­dia, warn­ing that ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence (AI) is mak­ing it in­creas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to dis­tin­guish truth from false­hood.

Kan­ga­loo said AI-gen­er­at­ed videos, im­ages and record­ings could make fab­ri­cat­ed in­for­ma­tion ap­pear au­then­tic, po­ten­tial­ly in­flu­enc­ing peo­ple’s de­ci­sions and dam­ag­ing pub­lic trust.

She was ad­dress­ing the 40th an­niver­sary cel­e­bra­tions of Di­vali Na­gar at the Na­tion­al Coun­cil of In­di­an Cul­ture (NCIC) grounds in Ch­agua­nas, themed Vive­ka – Dis­cern­ing Truth in the Age of AI, on Wednes­day.

Draw­ing on her per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ence, Kan­ga­loo dis­closed that fake so­cial me­dia pro­files and AI-gen­er­at­ed videos pur­port­ing to fea­ture her had cir­cu­lat­ed on­line.

“How are we to re­main faith­ful to truth when ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence can cre­ate false words, false im­ages, and false voic­es that ap­pear re­al? Vive­ka is the fac­ul­ty of dis­cern­ment, the union of in­tel­lect, con­science, and wis­dom by which we dis­tin­guish truth from false­hood and choose re­spon­si­bly,” she said.

Kan­ga­loo cau­tioned that AI was not in­her­ent­ly the en­e­my, not­ing that tech­nol­o­gy could ad­vance med­ical re­search, im­prove ed­u­ca­tion, as­sist peo­ple with dis­abil­i­ties and help solve com­plex prob­lems.

“We should nei­ther fear it blind­ly nor em­brace it un­crit­i­cal­ly, but gov­ern and use it wise­ly,” she said.

Kan­ga­loo said AI was not an in­de­pen­dent moral ac­tor, as hu­man be­ings de­signed its sys­tems, sup­plied its da­ta, es­tab­lished its ob­jec­tives and de­ter­mined how its prod­ucts were used.

She said the tech­nol­o­gy did not cre­ate dis­hon­esty, prej­u­dice or cru­el­ty, but could mag­ni­fy their con­se­quences by giv­ing mis­in­for­ma­tion un­prece­dent­ed reach, scale and cred­i­bil­i­ty.

The Pres­i­dent al­so warned that the spread of untest­ed al­le­ga­tions and ru­mours could un­der­mine pub­lic con­fi­dence and dis­cour­age cit­i­zens from ex­press­ing their views.

“Be­fore for­ward­ing or re­peat­ing, we should ask whether it is true, whether its con­text has been pre­served, and what con­se­quences may fol­low once it trav­els be­yond our con­trol. The wider our reach, the greater our du­ty of care.”

She said a healthy democ­ra­cy must al­low dif­fi­cult ques­tions and re­spect­ful crit­i­cism, while re­quir­ing cit­i­zens to dis­tin­guish al­le­ga­tions from ev­i­dence and com­mu­ni­cate re­spon­si­bly.

Kan­ga­loo al­so called on par­ents, ed­u­ca­tors and pol­i­cy­mak­ers to en­sure that young peo­ple de­vel­oped crit­i­cal think­ing skills rather than be­com­ing over­ly de­pen­dent on in­tel­li­gent ma­chines.

She said AI could as­sist with re­search and re­move bar­ri­ers to learn­ing, but an an­swer gen­er­at­ed by a ma­chine was not nec­es­sar­i­ly an an­swer un­der­stood.

Turn­ing to the preser­va­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s cul­tur­al her­itage, Kan­ga­loo said AI could help pre­serve and share the coun­try’s oral his­to­ries, mu­sic, art and tra­di­tions.

How­ev­er, she warned that sys­tems trained pre­dom­i­nant­ly on in­for­ma­tion from larg­er so­ci­eties could mis­un­der­stand or over­look the dis­tinc­tive cul­tur­al iden­ti­ty of small­er, mul­ti­cul­tur­al na­tions.

“Tech­nol­o­gy may pre­serve a record­ing, but on­ly com­mu­ni­ties can pre­serve its mean­ing,” she said.

Kan­ga­loo said the ben­e­fits of AI must not be re­strict­ed to peo­ple with wealth, tech­ni­cal ex­per­tise or ac­cess to well-re­sourced in­sti­tu­tions.

She urged that the tech­nol­o­gy serve hu­man dig­ni­ty rather than re­pro­duce ex­ist­ing prej­u­dices in new forms, adding that it must re­main trans­par­ent, ac­count­able and in­clu­sive.

Al­though Vive­ka orig­i­nat­ed in Hin­du phi­los­o­phy, she said its em­pha­sis on truth, wis­dom and moral re­spon­si­bil­i­ty had rel­e­vance across all faiths and cul­tures.

“In the age of AI, the lamp of Vive­ka must re­main in hu­man hands,” she said.

She de­scribed Di­vali Na­gar as an im­por­tant ex­pres­sion of liv­ing cul­ture, sus­tained through wor­ship, per­for­mances, food, craft, vol­un­tary ser­vice and the in­ter­ac­tion of gen­er­a­tions.

Youth com­pe­ti­tions re­turn to Na­gar

Af­ter a sev­en-year hia­tus, youth com­pe­ti­tions re­turned to the Di­vali Na­gar, draw­ing a packed au­di­ence ea­ger to wit­ness young per­form­ers show­case their tal­ents.

Di­vya Go­cool and Sari­ka Mathu­ra emerged as the re­spec­tive win­ners of the Trin In­di­an Youth Champs com­pe­ti­tion and the Meena House Dance Com­pe­ti­tion on Wednes­day.

Both young women re­ceived first-place prizes of $15,000.

Priyal Parikh placed sec­ond in the tal­ent com­pe­ti­tion, win­ning $10,000, while the singing duo of Nigel and Kavir Sankar placed third and re­ceived $7,500.

In the dance com­pe­ti­tion, the Suriyamike Dance Group placed sec­ond, fol­lowed by Shiv Kala Kendra in third. They re­ceived $10,000 and $7,000, re­spec­tive­ly.