Inter-ministerial panel recommended for AI regulation supervision

A committee involving members from different central ministries has recommended setting up an inter-ministerial body to oversee artificial intelligence (AI) regulation, according to sources familiar with the matter.

In a report submitted to the government last month, the committee recommended following a “whole-of-government approach” to regulate AI, wherein every ministry has a role, apart from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (Meity), said a source.

The submissions by the committee propose a disclosure provision for companies in cases where the AI platform/model causes harm to the user.

“If you look at the example of algorithmic trading and how that is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India, where they allow companies to use their proprietary technology as long as something doesn’t go wrong. If something goes bad, you have to disclose what it is,” the committee has recommended something on similar lines in its submission around AI regulation,” said the source.

Representatives from government ministries including Meity, the Department of Science & Technology, the Department of Telecommunications, and NITI Aayog were part of the committee, he said.

The upcoming Digital India Act is also expected to have a dedicated chapter on AI and the related regulations, in addition to other areas such as quantum computing and blockchain, he further added.

The Act is expected to be put up for public consultations after the general elections.

A few days earlier, Business Standard reported that the government was carrying out a case study across ministries by a “dedicated” wing which consists of experts, to figure out the AI use cases under the AI mission.

The idea of the exercise was to improve the processes using AI — to make them faster and user-friendly, as well as ease the workload of the ministries.

A ministry official, however, had said this would not take the “human touch” out of the process.

In the absence of a dedicated regulatory framework around AI in place, Meity has been issuing advisories asking intermediaries and AI platforms to regulate the risks arising out of the use of AI and to ensure that the biases arising out of their models do not impact the interests of Indian users.

Further, the government has been engaging in global discussions too, around the safety issues arising out of the use of AI, and the approach to regulate it.

In December last year, during the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) summit in New Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for a global framework for the use of AI.

Speaking at the summit, Modi said AI can become the biggest tool for development in the 21st century but it can also equally be a force of destruction.

“Besides the challenge of deepfakes, cybersecurity, and data theft, AI tools falling into the hands of terrorists pose a big threat. Global security will face a big threat if AI-laced weapons were to reach terrorist organisations. We have to deliberate on this issue and reach a concrete plan to stop the misuse of AI,” he had said during his address at GPAI.