Noted poet and Padma Shri awardee Sitanshu Yashaschandra on Thursday cautioned educational institutions against the dangers of artificial intelligence and asserted the new technology will produce skilful yet thoughtless students.

Yashaschandra was addressing students and teachers at Ahmedabad University’s 15th convocation.

Unlike AI, people have the choice to ask whether they want to do a task and also ponder if it should be done or not, he added.

“Artificial Intelligence can write a sonnet like Shakespeare if we ask it to do so. It will also write a poem like Kalidasa and it will be difficult to distinguish whether it is written by Kalidasa or artificial intelligence. But as Indians, let us pause and ask what artificial intelligence cannot do,” said the noted academic and scholar of Gujarati literature.

“It cannot do two things. One, it cannot ask itself ‘do I want to write’ because it will write if it is told to do so. AI does not have freedom to choose. So various disciplines in an institution like this face danger of producing artificial intelligence in its students. This is a great danger, not only in India but also elsewhere,” he said.

He further asked whether universities are turning into training institutions or circuses.

“Are we a circus where some ring master tells us what to do? I have seen European universities and American universities. The same thing is happening, They are turning into institutions of training, and someone decides… (We are producing) thoughtless but skilful people,” he said.

Pointing to the second question about “should I write it”, he said it is something “artificially created graduation students and experts cannot ask”.

“At the convocation, degrees were conferred on 833 students across various disciplines. Six doctoral degrees were awarded while gold medals were presented to five students for academic excellence and leadership,” the university said in a release.

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