India will regulate AI! Union minister says will protect 'digital citizens'

A day after ChatGPT creator and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who has vociferously called for government regulation of artificial intelligence (AI), met PM Narendra Modi in New Delhi, Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar has announced that AI regulations will be implemented in India. The reason for regulating AI, according to the minister, was to protect “digital citizens” from potential dangers that can come from AI. Chandrasekhar was speaking in a presentation on India's progress towards digitalisation over the past nine years under the PM Modi-led NDA government.

The minister also expressed his concerns about the toxic behavior and the criminal elements present on the Internet and said that the government remained committed to protecting citizens and thwarting such miscreants.

"While AI is disruptive we do not see in the next few years the so-called threat of replacing the jobs. Because of the current stage of the development of AI is very task-oriented and not reasoning, logic and etc," Union Minister of State for Entrepreneurship, Skill Development, Electronics and Technology said.

India to implement AI regulation

"Jobs usually have reasoning and logic and AI is not as sophisticated at this point," the minister said.

On the AI regulation, he said the government will regulate it taking into consideration the aspects of harm to users.

"We will safeguard digital citizens through this technology," he said.

He also said that companies wanting to operate in India will have to mitigate user harm first.

"Our approach towards AI regulation is very simple. We will regulate AI as we regulate Web 3 or any emerging technologies to ensure they do not harm digital citizens," Chandrasekhar said.

Given India's strong IT industry and a large set of data, AI-based utilities can leverage huge potential in the country. Though AI is still in its early stages.

Many countries have been using AI technologies for better service delivery and to reduce human intervention but fears of job cuts remain as the technology evolves.