India Should Embrace AI's Potential Says IT Minister By CIOTechOutlook Team

India Should Embrace AI's Potential Says IT Minister

CIOTechOutlook Team | Thursday, 07 December 2023, 05:56 IST

India should be careful not to demonize artificial intelligence (AI) by focusing solely on the risks associated with the technology, according to Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state for electronics and information technology.

“I am concerned, as most of us should be concerned, that governments, when they react, tend to overreact,” he said, addressing the third day of the Carnegie Global Technology Summit.

“India’s position is not to overly obsess and demonise AI and look at this only through the prism of safety and trust. We consider AI as the biggest and most significant invention in our times," he said.

AI is a “kinetic enabler” of the digital economy and the innovation economy, he said, adding, “It (AI) should be harnessed to deliver its potential while at the same time building really easily understandable, easily regulatable guardrails of safety and trust and accountability.”

Chandrasekhar’s comments come amid concerns from various quarters about the challenges AI brings with regard to data privacy and security, biased and discriminatory outcomes, and replacing humans in jobs, as per economic times.

At the same event, Invest India managing director Nivruti Rai stated that India had all of the raw materials required for AI - data, software, and programmers - and that people recognize the opportunity costs of not using AI.

However, the concerns of AI defects, bias, manipulation, and malware need the creation of a legal framework for the technology, according to her.

Technologies such as federated learning, homomorphic encryption, differential privacy, "zero knowledge" in cryptography, and created adversarial networks, according to Rai, are ways to secure data safety, privacy, and control.