Centre's Approval Must Before Launching AI Models In India: Report (Photo by Igor Omilaev on Unsplash)
The Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has reportedly issued an advisory to the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) models in India. According to an NDTV report, it is mandatory for all “under-testing” or “unreliable” AI models to get explicit permission from the central government before being deployed to users in the country.
As per the report, this crucial advisory was issued on March 1. The latest advisory came more than two months after the government released an advisory to social media platforms regarding the deepfake issue. “The use of under-testing / unreliable Artificial Intelligence model(s) /LLM/Generative AI, software(s) or algorithm(s) and its availability to the users on Indian Internet must be done so with the explicit permission of the Government of India and be deployed only after appropriately labeling the possible and inherent fallibility or unreliability of the output generated,” said the advisory, as quoted by NDTV.
The advisory also recommended a “consent popup” mechanism. This is to inform the users about the possible unreliability of the output generated. It is to be noted that the central government made this move as Google Gemini AI recently generated a controversial response to a question about PM Narendra Modi.
Recent advisory of @GoI_MeitY needs to be understood
➡️Advisory is aimed at the Significant platforms and permission seeking from Meity is only for large plarforms and will not apply to startups.
➡️Advisory is aimed at untested AI platforms from deploying on Indian Internet…
— Rajeev Chandrasekhar 🇮🇳 (@Rajeev_GoI) March 4, 2024
At the same time, Union Minister of State for IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar took to his X handle to clarify the recent advisory. The Union Minister wrote in his X handle that the advisory is aimed at “significant platforms” and permission seeking from the ministry is only for large platforms. Notably, the minister said that the advisory does not apply to startups. Rajeev Chandrasekhar also added that it is aimed at untested AI platforms from deploying on the Indian Internet. “Process of seeking permission , labelling & consent based disclosure to user abt untested platforms is insurance policy to platforms who can otherwise be sued by consumers,” the minister added in his X post on March 4.
