The government will release a consultation paper on AI regulation within a month, which will establish the foundational basis for India’s upcoming AI regulations, said Vaishnaw
The regulatory blueprint will focus on AI safety and security, mitigating harms around the spread of deepfakes, and skilling to ensure that no demographic is left behind
The government intends to pursue a techno-legal solution where industry stakeholders will be actively involved and take the primary responsibility for cybersecurity, safety, and other issues
Amid growing uncertainties over AI’s utilisation and its prospects, union IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the government is working on releasing a consultation paper on regulating the nascent tech.
Speaking at the release of the World Bank’s latest World Development Report on the subject of ‘The Promise of Artificial Intelligence’, Vaishnaw said the timing is right for India to formalise AI regulation and the upcoming consultation paper will establish the foundational basis for future AI regulation.
The regulatory blueprint is also likely to sharpen focus on AI safety and security, navigate the deepfakes risk as well as ensuring adequate skill development necessary to optimise the utilisation of AI.
On the deepfake epidemic, Vaishnaw identified AI-morphed content as a “nuisance which can cause huge problems in society” while noting they establish dangerous precedents and narratives that mislead the public. He added that the quality of these is improving continuously.
The minister further said that AI and emerging technologies cannot be effectively managed through legislation alone. Hence, the government intends to pursue a techno-legal solution with the active participation of industry stakeholders.
“The industry has to take the primary responsibility,” said Vaishnaw, regarding issues such as cybersecurity, safety, user harm, psychological disorders, and deepfake proliferation.
Notably, the IT minister had previously emphasised that the IT Act is becoming obsolete and India needs a new legal framework to regulate AI. Reports had also hinted that the Centre was looking at formulating a new framework for AI regulation.
As frontier AI models’ capabilities are evolving, the government has increasingly focused on tightening rules to mitigate the harms caused by proliferation of AI-generated content. The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had proposed amending the IT Act to require online platforms to label all deepfakes and AI-generated content as “synthetically generated information.”
The news also comes amid a storm over global tech giant Meta’s handling of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) on its platforms like Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. A BBC investigation earlier this year alleged that Instagram ads were directing users towards Telegram channels offering CSAM material for saleresulting in the company facing summons from MeitY and an inquiry by the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR).
Following the episode, Meta and Google both ultimately agreed to report content on child abuse to Indian law enforcement authorities.