Rajeev Chandrasekhar: We will regulate Artificial Intelligence and any emerging technology based on user harm: IT minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar | India News
NEW DELHI: 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”, said Union IT minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Friday.
During a press briefing where the IT minister gave a presentation on how far India has travelled in terms of digitisation in the last nine years, Chandrasekhar said AI will be regulated to ensure that it doesn’t harm ‘digital citizens’.
The same principle will be applied to any digital platform such as Web3, he added. 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.
“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 added that the new digital personal data protection bill will be introduced in Parliament soon, and consultations with stakeholders will begin soon on the Digital India Bill.
AI poses no threat to jobs right now: Minister
On a question regarding 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. 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 next few years, but not right now,” the minister added.
During a press briefing where the IT minister gave a presentation on how far India has travelled in terms of digitisation in the last nine years, Chandrasekhar said AI will be regulated to ensure that it doesn’t harm ‘digital citizens’.
The same principle will be applied to any digital platform such as Web3, he added. 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.
“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 added that the new digital personal data protection bill will be introduced in Parliament soon, and consultations with stakeholders will begin soon on the Digital India Bill.
AI poses no threat to jobs right now: Minister
On a question regarding 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. 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 next few years, but not right now,” the minister added.
