Washington, Feb 15 (NationPress) As India gears up to host the AI Impact Summit next week, Jeff Cotten, President and CEO of AI-driven SaaS solutions firm PROS, emphasized the necessity for India to invest more intensely in infrastructure to stay competitive against adversaries, particularly China.

“China has decisively chosen to focus on platforms, aiming to become the global leader in AI,” Cotten remarked during an interview with IANS.

Cotten posed a critical question for India: will it “truly invest in capital infrastructure while also providing expertise in engineering capabilities?”

He pointed out that India is still “a vast tech market” and “a principal labor supplier to the world,” but he cautioned that long-term AI leadership requires more than just engineering talent.

The summit arrives at a moment when global perceptions regarding AI are evolving. Cotten noted that while enthusiasm remains robust, “the bubble is somewhat bursting, at least concerning expectations.”

He indicated that numerous initial beliefs about AI's potential to replace entire sectors are now under reevaluation.

“There’s a significant narrative suggesting that AI will ultimately render SaaS companies obsolete. I disagree with that,” he stated, referencing software-as-a-service (SaaS) businesses.

He further explained that while AI will “continue to diminish part of the value proposition that software as a service offers,” it will not eliminate the necessity for traditional enterprise software.

Cotten emphasized that a considerable portion of today’s AI advancements are focused on large language models like ChatGPT and comparable systems.

“This recent AI revolution we discuss is genuinely about large language models,” he noted.

He elaborated that these models are designed to be creative and generative, utilizing what he termed “non-deterministic algorithms.” Although this makes them powerful in certain domains, it also renders them unreliable in others.

“A large manufacturer cannot afford even a minor error in pricing,” he asserted, highlighting that large language models “often struggle with mathematical accuracy” and “frequently miscalculate equations.”

“The objective is not to execute highly precise, deterministic tasks,” he clarified.

He cautioned against employing generative AI in highly sensitive scenarios. “You cannot involve a non-deterministic algorithm in a precise use case,” he said, citing domains such as pricing, manufacturing, and healthcare procedures.

Beyond economic rivalry, Cotten raised alarms about increasing cybersecurity threats linked to AI.

“With the ability to deploy millions of bots per second to launch attacks,” he warned, this poses a considerable new danger.

He remarked that telecommunication infrastructures are being targeted in unprecedented ways, as AI agents can perform “trillions of calculations and attacks per second.”

When asked about regulation, Cotten expressed his general opposition to government oversight, arguing that authorities often lag in understanding emerging threats.

Instead, he advocated for governments to concentrate on “investing in or supporting specific cybersecurity firms” and ensuring adequate funding for research in these critical areas.

For democracies like India, he recommended adopting countermeasures and enhancing public awareness.

Governments committed to national defense, he stated, are “investing in counterinsurgency and striving to infiltrate threat-actor nations and groups.”