Union IT minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Friday, “The Centre’s approach to any regulation of Artificial Intelligence will be through the prism of “user harm or derived user harm through any technology”.
Web3
He had given a presentation on how far India has travelled in terms of digitisation in the last nine years.
He said AI will be regulated to ensure that it doesn’t harm ‘digital citizens’ and that the same principle will be applied to any technology or digital platform such as Web3.
Web3 (also known as Web 3.0) is an idea for a new iteration of the World Wide Web which incorporates concepts such as decentralisation, blockchain technologies, and token-based economics.
Protecting digital citizens
“There has been an increase in toxicity and criminality on the internet.
We won’t let attempts to harm digital citizens succeed.
Either AI and related programmes and platforms will mitigate user harm or they will not be allowed to operate in India,” said the minister.
He also spoke about the new digital personal data protection bill which will be introduced in Parliament soon.
Consultations with stakeholders will begin this month on the Digital India Bill.
Threat to jobs
AI poses no threat to jobs right now.
When asked about the threat to jobs due to the development of AI, the minister said: “There is some melodrama about AI.
In fact, AI has created over 1 crore jobs in the last few years … There is a remote possibility that AI will become intelligent enough to start replacing human workforce in certain sectors after 5 years.
But, currently the application of AI is restricted to tasks.
It creates efficiency.
There is a chance that it will replace overly repetitive and routine jobs in the coming years.
While AI is disruptive, there is minimal threat to jobs as of now.
Development
The current state of development of AI is task-oriented, it cannot reason or use logic.
Most jobs need reasoning and logic which currently no AI is capable of performing.
AI might be able to achieve it in the next few years, but not right now,” the minister added.
OpenAI CEO
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman had met PM Narendra Modi with hopes that India agrees to join a ‘United Nations of AI’ that will jointly develop AI regulations.
Altman is on a tour of several countries including Israel, Jordan, Qatar, the UAE and South Korea.
He hopes to convince the leadership of these countries to form an international body that will dictate how AI is developed.
Need to regulate AI
Altman has been vocal about the need to regulate AI on a global level to ensure it is developed for the good of all.
He opines that it will be much better and easier, if there is a global body that governs the development and deployment of AI, much like the International Atomic Energy Agency for nuclear power.
Our own views: Chandrasekhar
Chandrasekhar had reacted to Altman’s efforts, saying, “Altman has his own ideas about how AI should be regulated.
We certainly think we have some smart brains in India as well and we have our own views on how AI should have guardrails”.
“If there is eventually a United Nations of AI – as Sam Altman wants – more power to it.
But that does not stop us from doing what is right for our digital citizens and keeping the internet safe and trusted”, the minister said.
