MoS IT says Govt. won’t regulate applications of AI in India

Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar has said that the government will not regulate the application of artificial intelligence in the country. The minister made the statement in an interaction with IANS on Monday. Also Read: Meta AI Releases a New Way to Edit Video: Here’s How It Works

This has come at a time when tech experts and leaders are concerned about the potential of generative AI and have urged governments around the world to regulate the technology. Also Read: SuperMaker AI Launches Next-Gen AI Service to Generate Text, Video, Music, and More

The minister said that the government will focus on regulating user harm arising from the technology and it will set strong boundaries for safe use of all AI Platforms. Also Read: Samsung Galaxy AI adds Hindi, among 16 new languages

“There is, of course, the debate on regulation of AI. Our approach is that we will not regulate use cases, rather adopt the approach of regulating user harm from AI and create guardrails that will create the obligation of safe use on all AI platforms,” Chandrasekhar said.

This approach of the government has been incorporated in the draft Digital India Act. As per the minister, there is a whole section on emerging technologies that will cover technologies such as AI and Web3.

The minister said that AI is important for the growth of the digital economy and digital government strategy and the government sees it in that way.

The government launched IndiaAI programme in 2021 to promote Artificial Intelligence in the country. The minister said that the government will build three Centres of Excellences, India Datasets programme, DI Bhashini platform and an ecosystem and partnership of government, academics, startups and Industry under the IndiaAI programme. Almost 1000 crore has been sanctioned for the program till now.

He said that the government is creating policies and enabling an environment for innovators to help in areas including AI, metaverse and deep tech. According to him, the IndiaAI programme will help the country build world-class platforms, solutions and tools to not only solve local issues but also help the world.

He further said that the primary aim for the government is to develop a vibrant startup ecosystem that can build commercially deployable AI platforms and solutions.

“We are building Indianised AI tools. Further improving governance via the India Stack has a key goal for us,” Chandrasekhar said.

Meanwhile, union cabinet led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved the draft of Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Bill 2023. The bill is likely to be presented in the upcoming monsoon session of Parliament, which is scheduled from July 20 to August 11.