Exploring barriers to acceptance of artificial intelligence in social welfare schemes of governments in India – a systematic literature review

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a proven technology and has arguably a potential to replace the human brain. The long-term success of AI in the public sector will depend on its early successes in improving the effectiveness of Government functions. Governments in India have been quick to adopt AI in revenue generating departments. However, they have been considerably slow in adopting it in social welfare schemes. There has been limited research in identifying challenges for the same in social welfare schemes in India, especially in identifying the potential beneficiaries and reaching out to them proactively. This research paper is a systematic literature review (SLR) for understanding barriers impeding the adoption of AI in social welfare areas. Through SLR, the authors have identified 82 sub-dimensions under five categories of barriers of Social Environment, Technology, Technology ecosystem, Organizational and individual related barriers. Thereafter authors discuss the possible resolutions to the barriers. The discussions presented would lay foundation of using AI in the Social Welfare Schemes of the Governments and would contribute to achieving improvements in the efficiencies and efficacy in the decisions.