The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Daily Life: Applications, Benefits, Societal Challenges, and an Ethical Framework

This paper confirms that Artificial Intelligence is widely and irreversibly embedded in the modern lifestyle and is altering how people in India and around the world obtain medical care, education, money, move throughout urban centers and arrange their households. The empirical analysis of 130 survey participants and 18 semi-structured interviews presents the result that there are high rates of adoption of AI (daily usage rate of 84 percent) but high in diversity of the occupational cohorts, and high in the levels of knowledge deficit - only 47 percent of the participants demonstrated the knowledge of the algorithmic processes of the tools they use on an everyday basis. There are three findings of particular significance. The first is the awareness-usage gap i.e. people in millions are using AI without even being aware that they are using it which is a structural obstacle to informed consent and democratic responsibility. Second, the situation of a high-benefit and high- risk stance in terms of finance and healthcare AI necessitate formation of sector specific governance structures, where it comes to developing structures around innovation, as well as the protection. Third, the information that we have founded on the RAF gap analysis reveals that the average implementation gap is [?]1.8 along the five pillars of governance and this fact demonstrates that the creation of regulations and institutions have failed to keep pace with the actual implementation of the technologies. A more evidence-based approach to the future is proposed by the Responsible AI Framework outlined in this paper. The legislative orders and other independent oversight bodies should overcome transparency and accountability loop- holes. Privacy should not be attached to the AI system as an afterthought. And the most practical pillar of all is digital literacy, which must be elevated to a national educational priority and ensure that in the next generations, young people will be engaged with AI as critical and informed citizens and not just consumers. The weakness of this study is that, the sample was narrowed down to urban Karnataka, hence it could not be generalised to the rural and linguistically diverse population, and the study had a cross-sectional nature, hence, no causal inference could be made. Future research must incorporate longitudinal research designs of cohort samples to track the outcomes of the AI literacy interventions, cross- national comparative studies involving semi-urban and rural groups, and randomised trials of certain strategies of RAF implementation in various institutional contexts.

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