'Your AI imposing political ideology on Indian users’: Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal criticises LinkedIn's policy

Ola CEO, Bhavish Aggarwal, recently sparked a debate over the use of gender pronouns and the role of AI. In his recent post, Aggarwal accused LinkedIn's AI of imposing a 'political ideology' on Indian users. This was in response to LinkedIn taking down Aggarwal's previous post for violating its community guidelines.

Aggarwal's original post on X targeted the use of gender pronouns, which he referred to as a "pronoun illness". He expressed concerns about this practice being adopted in India, fearing it might undermine traditional values which he believes inherently respect all individuals regardless of gender.

Following his initial post, LinkedIn flagged and deleted Aggarwal's comments for not aligning with their professional community policies. In response, Aggarwal shared a screenshot of LinkedIn's disclaimer and lambasted the platform, stating: "Dear @LinkedIn this post of mine was about YOUR AI imposing a political ideology on Indian users that’s unsafe, sinister. Rich of you to call my post unsafe! This is exactly why we need to build own tech and AI in India. Else we’ll just be pawns in others political objectives.”

Mixed reactions online

The incident has sparked a broad array of responses on social media, with some users applauding Aggarwal for taking a stand against what they perceive as unnecessary Western influences. Others, however, criticized his stance, emphasizing the importance of respecting individual identity and the evolving nature of societal norms, highlighting the inclusive practice of acknowledging preferred pronouns.

Ola's Krutrim AI

Aggarwal's emphasis on an Indian AI model falls in line with the development and release of the current made-in-India AI project, Krutrim AI. This AI model, developed by Krutrim Si Design, is capable of understanding and generating content in 10 Indian languages.

The objective behind Krutrim AI is to cater to India’s linguistic diversity. It claims proficiency in languages including English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Marathi, Kannada, Bengali, Gujarati, and Hinglish. Krutrim AI claims it can bridge the gap between conventional AI and the specific needs of Indian languages and culture.