Experts Caution Against Bias In AI’s Work

Hyderabad: What happens when AI isn’t just answering prompts, but making decisions, completing tasks, and acting independently? At St Francis College for Women, students from across Hyderabad got hands-on with agentic AI, a model that shifts AI from passive automation to intelligent, goal-driven systems that can perform complex functions like drafting job applications, responding to emails, summarising news, or conducting research.

“This isn’t just about technology, it’s about choices, who builds it, how it’s used, and what values are embedded in it,” said Melissa Nandula, American Spaces Programming Coordinator at Hyderabad. “Agentic AI is going to shape how people work, communicate, and solve problems. But that means we also have to ask tough questions about trust, responsibility, and ethics.”

Organised in collaboration with American Corner Hyderabad and Centle, the two-day workshop showed students how no-code platforms could be used to build working AI agents, with no programming background required. But alongside the technical, the focus remained firmly on context and consequence.

“We want students to see that AI isn’t magic. It’s a system built by people, for people,” said Sai Krishna, co-founder of Centle. “If we’re giving AI goals, we have to understand whose goals those are, and what happens if they’re wrong.”

During a panel discussion on AI in Command: Ethics, Autonomy, and Accountability, Rakesh Dubbudu, the founder of Factly, warned against the temptation to treat AI systems as neutral tools. “If a system denies someone benefits or makes a life-impacting decision, who answers for that?” he asked. “We can’t let ‘the AI did it’ become the new excuse.”

Padmashree, assistant professor at St Francis, said students must learn to question not just what AI does, but what it shouldn’t do. “Bias isn’t a bug, it’s a design choice we often fail to notice. We have to be intentional about what we’re building into these agents.”

Prof T. Uma Joseph, principal, said the real goal is to shape informed creators, not just users. “Agentic AI marks a turning point, we’re moving from tools that serve instructions to agents that interpret, decide, and act. And that comes with civic responsibility.”

The event concluded with remarks by Veena Thangavelu, political-economic officer, who urged students to step into leadership roles in emerging tech. “Workshops like this are about more than skills. They’re about shaping the values that guide how AI evolves, and you don’t need to be a coder to do that.”

Around 175 participants from colleges across Hyderabad took part in the programme, building their own AI agents, engaging in critical dialogue, and coming face to face with the bigger questions AI raises.