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.

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