AI at a Crossroads: Democracy, Development and the future of public life and beyond

(AI is reshaping societies faster than regulations can catch up. From urban planning to political discourse, India faces a delicate balancing act: embracing innovation while safeguarding democracy, equity, and human dignity. Explore how the India‑AI Impact Summit 2026 spotlights these tensions, offering a vision of responsible AI for the Global South.)

As India hosts the India‑AI Impact Summit 2026, the country stands at a pivotal crossroads. Artificial intelligence promises transformative public services, economic growth, and inclusive innovation — but also raises profound questions about surveillance, political influence, and equity in a large democracy. This feature explores the opportunities, challenges, and ethical imperatives shaping India’s AI journey and its global implications.

As the world increasingly confronts the disruptive promise and perils of artificial intelligence, India finds itself at a defining juncture. The India‑AI Impact Summit 2026, scheduled in New Delhi from 16 to 20 February 2026, has become both a symbol and a crucible — a forum where competing visions of the future converge: innovation or inequality, oversight or overreach, human dignity or digitised control.

This summit is the first of its kind in the Global South, a testament to India’s growing stature in technology and governance, and a signal that global AI discourse is moving beyond narrow technical debates to encompass societal, economic and ethical frameworks. But the ambition of such gatherings invites equally expansive questions: can AI serve as a tool for inclusive development? Or will it entrench power asymmetries that democratic institutions struggle to contain?

Harnessing AI for Public Good and Inclusive Governance

From public health to education, agriculture to urban planning, AI holds the potential to revolutionise governance. In India, the integration of AI into public systems builds on the foundation of Digital Public Infrastructure — platforms such as Aadhaar and the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) that have already transformed digital accessibility for millions. These systems demonstrate how public‑sector digital infrastructure can reduce transaction costs, enhance inclusiveness, and expand service delivery at scale.

At the summit, policymakers have emphasised that AI should be “human‑centric”, oriented towards enhancing public welfare rather than substituting it. A senior administrator from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology described the vision as “AI for people, not AI instead of people”: a commitment to tools that extend human capacity without displacing oversight.

Proponents argue that AI can improve governance in tangible ways — enabling predictive analytics for disease outbreaks, targeted support for smallholder farmers, personalised learning pathways for students in regional languages, and real‑time public grievance redress mechanisms. In each case, the challenge lies not in technological feasibility but in ethical implementation.

Regulating Innovation Without Suppressing It

The question of regulation is, perhaps, the most contested in contemporary AI discourse. Countries across the globe are experimenting with frameworks to manage risks without throttling innovation.

The European Union’s AI Act, for example, adopts a risk‑based approach that classifies AI systems by their potential harms and imposes proportional obligations. In contrast, the United States has favoured sector‑specific guidance and principles‑based frameworks, emphasising flexibility and private sector leadership. Both models carry lessons and limitations: rigidity can stifle early stage development, while laissez‑faire approaches can leave gaps in protection.

India’s emerging strategy — described by senior policymakers as a “calibrated governance” model — aims to strike a balance. By avoiding premature, sweeping regulations that could hamper nascent AI ecosystems, it seeks to encourage innovation while establishing guardrails through guidelines, pilot testing, sectoral oversight and collaborative standards development.

One technologist participating in preparatory workshops noted, “Effective AI regulation should protect people before it protects code.” This sentiment reflects a growing consensus among analysts that ethical governance must precede — not follow — widespread deployment.

At the Heart of Debate: Equity and Ethical Use

A central theme at the summit and in global commentary is the dual promise and peril of AI in deepening or reducing inequality.  AI can democratise access to knowledge, empower marginalised communities, and expand economic opportunity. For example, multi‑lingual natural language models can bridge linguistic barriers in rural India, helping farmers access market insights, weather forecasts and government advisories in their own languages.

Yet without careful design and oversight, AI systems can also replicate and amplify the biases embedded in the data they are trained on. Credit scoring algorithms that rely on historical financial behaviour — already unevenly distributed by caste and class — can deny credit to those who need it most. Job matching systems may disadvantage applicants from non‑urban backgrounds, deepening the digital divide.

Civil society groups have urged that ethical AI must include independent auditing, impact assessments, mechanisms for redress, and participatory policymaking that includes voices from marginalised communities. The refrain from these quarters is clear: “Fairness is not an add‑on; it must be foundational.”

Surveillance, Privacy and the Citizen’s Right to Be Unknown

Perhaps the most anxiety‑inducing debate concerns surveillance and civil liberties. Advanced AI systems for facial recognition, behavioural analytics, and integrated data platforms have undeniable utility in public safety and administrative efficiency. They can make cities safer, services faster and responses more adaptive.

But they also raise profound questions about privacy, autonomy, and the nature of democratic life.

Scholars of digital governance distinguish between a “watchful society”, where institutions are accountable and citizens are empowered, and a “watched society”, where continuous monitoring becomes normative and self‑censorship replaces civic engagement. This distinction is not hypothetical. In many societies, citizens already adjust behaviour in anticipation of being monitored — a subtle but meaningful shift in public norms.

Human rights advocates have called for clear legal limits on surveillance technologies, independent oversight bodies, transparency in data use, and meaningful remedies for citizens harmed by algorithmic decisions. Without these, they warn, AI could reshape public life in ways that erode rather than enhance democratic freedoms.

Politics, Power and the Algorithms of Influence

The political implications of AI extend beyond governance into the very mechanics of democratic competition. Generative models can produce persuasive political content at scale; micro‑targeted messaging can tailor narratives to segmented audiences; and synthetic media — deepfakes — can distort reality faster than verification systems can respond.

Research on democratic resilience and AI underscores two realities: the increasing sophistication of disinformation tools, and the lag in institutional capacity to counter them. This combination risks fragmenting public discourse, eroding trust in shared information, and amplifying polarising themes.

The regulator tasked with overseeing elections in India, the Election Commission, has already flagged challenges posed by digitally driven mis‑ and disinformation campaigns, emphasising the need for frameworks that protect electoral integrity without suppressing legitimate speech. In the political arena, AI emerges not simply as a tool but as a terrain of influence.

Geopolitics, Strategic Autonomy and Sovereign AI

AI is simultaneously a matter of international diplomacy and strategic competition. Nations are racing to secure technological capabilities that underpin economic growth, military modernisation, and global influence.

The India‑AI Summit’s positioning as a platform for dialogue between Global South nations and major technology powers reflects an ambition to shape not just domestic policy but global norms. By emphasising equitable access, capacity building, and collaborative standards, India seeks to counter narratives dominated by Western or East Asian technological hegemonies.

Yet geopolitics also injects complexity. Divergent approaches to data sovereignty, cross‑border data flows, national security, and defence applications of AI make consensus difficult. Some powerful nations advocate strict data localisation; others prioritise open ecosystems for innovation. Balancing these agendas requires diplomatic acumen as much as technological literacy.

Bridging Policy and Practice: What Comes Next?

If India’s AI strategy is to be judged by its outcomes, the integration of AI must be demonstrably beneficial, rights‑respecting, and inclusive. This calls for several imperatives:

1. Institutional Capability: Regulatory bodies must be equipped with expertise to audit, evaluate and guide AI deployments.
2. Transparency and Auditability: Algorithms used in public systems should be auditable and explainable.
3. Redress Mechanisms: Citizens subjected to automated decisions must have accessible avenues for grievance redress.
4. Inclusive Innovation: AI systems should be designed with multilingual input, accessibility standards, and equity assessments.
5. Global Cooperation: Shared research, interoperable standards, and multilateral engagement can mitigate risks that transcend national boundaries.

Recognising these needs, the summit has placed significant emphasis on collaborative working groups, cross‑sector partnerships, and research networks designed to build normative frameworks that are both adaptive and accountable.

An Open‑Ended Future

Artificial intelligence is not merely a technological phenomenon; it is a cultural, political and economic force with deep implications for how societies work and how citizens relate to the institutions that govern them. For a large democracy such as India, the challenge is not only to harness AI for progress but to do so in ways that safeguard human dignity, protect civil liberties, and expand opportunities rather than narrow them.

As one international expert recently remarked, “AI will reflect the values of the societies that shape it.” The question for the India‑AI Summit — and for democracies around the world — is whether those values will be centred on human flourishing, equitable access, accountability and trust, or on consolidated power and technological dominance.

The future of AI in democratic societies remains unwritten, and the choices made today — in regulatory frameworks, institutional design, cultural norms and civic engagement — will determine not just how the technology evolves, but how humanity navigates the balance between innovation and human values…

(The writer is a retired officer of the IIS and a former Editor-in-Charge of DD News and AIR News , India’s national broadcasters, as well as Media-link Information Officer of PIB attached to various ministries. He has also worked as an international media consultant with UNICEF Nigeria and contributes regularly to various publications in India and abroad)