Union minister of commerce & industry and civil aviation Suresh Prabhu has said that the government will use Artificial Intelligence (AI) for good governance and proper regulations and corrective action will be taken to protect citizens’ privacy and ownership of data. India is transporting more data than the US and China put together and the top six companies in the world are using this data with value addition and monetisation. Prabhu added that India is strengthening its legal system and regulatory framework to deal with this world of digital data.
The minister said that AI is the technology of today and one who masters this will rule the world. Every country is developing an AI strategy and India too is working on developing a strategy for the use of AI for the common good. He was speaking at the International Colloquium on Ethics and Governance of Autonomous AI System for a Better World held in New Delhi early this week. The two-day Colloquium was organised by department of science and technology, CMS, ITUAPT and InfocomThink Tank.
In his remarks, K Vijay Raghvan, principal scientific advisor to government of India, said that government has taken the initiative to formulate a national strategy for use of AI and make the process transparent and participative in order to create awareness in civil society about AI.
This is the first time in human history that machines are taking decisions based on data and experience and we have to learn to deal with this kind of decision making. The government will have to put in place mechanisms on how data is used and algorithms are written. As all the data being generated in world today is being controlled by a few companies, it is creating asymmetries as very few create, understand and use this data. This has given rise to a very powerful elite who are controlling millions of lives.
RS Sharma, chairman TRAI, in his address said that a data rich country like India must develop a national policy spelling out ownership of data, privacy of data generated by citizens and issues of data portability so that the sovereignty of country is not compromised.
