Relevance of Indian Knowledge System in Artificial Intelligence of Modern Era

AbstractFuture-oriented convergence between Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Machine Learning (ML) represents a valuable trans-disciplinary area of exploration. IKS embodies the rich epistemologies of ethics, sustainability, and holistic, deep knowledge of Ayurveda, Yoga, Sanskrit grammar, and classical logic. More contemporary AI/ML are often premised on algorithms and big data and may lack cultural nuance, particularly with humanistic ethics. The paper presents the exploration of whether AI and ML may actually serve the IKS corpus to both preserve, analyze, further develop, and more effectively utilize the texts, practices, and beliefs surrounding them, and to propose conceptual frameworks wherein AI systems are enhanced by ethical reasoning belief systems, non-binary logic, and a value system from Indian philosophy. The theoretical crossroads of IKS and AI/ML offer new ways to conduct knowledge representation, ontology-aware in a culturally situated way, and advanced natural language processing opportunities through an Indian subcontinent language base such as Sanskrit. But this paper also discusses challenges amidst opportunity to bring clarity into application domains, a research agenda, and an innovation agenda. At a minimum, the paper proposes AI systems that are not only technological achievements but also culturally situated and ethically grounded and therefore more effectively able to characterize and relay an Indigenous worldview in focus in the digital age.