India to regulate AI to safeguard digital citizens: Minister

NEW DELHI: Amid the debate sparked by rapid advances in artificial intelligence, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state for electronics and information technology, said that India planned to regulate AI to prevent harm to "digital citizens."

He said that companies operating in India would need to prioritise mitigating user harm. Chandrasekhar also mentioned that consultations on the Digital India Bill would begin this month, and a new Personal Data Protection Bill would be introduced in Parliament soon.

This came on a day Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, who is among industry leaders who have sought coordinated global regulation of generative artificial intelligence, the technology that is powering powerful chatbot.

A statement said Modi and Altman discussed the potential of AI in enhancing India's tech ecosystem, particularly for the youth. The Prime Minister welcomed collaborations that could accelerate India's digital transformation and described the conversation with Altman as insightful.

Chandrasekhar stated during a press conference that AI regulation would be implemented similarly to how the government regulates Web 3 and other emerging technologies, with a focus on safeguarding digital citizens.

He noted that AI, in its current state of development, was more task-oriented rather than capable of reasoning and logic. As a result, he believes that AI does not pose an immediate threat to replacing jobs that involve reasoning and logic.