Artificial Intelligence is the new buzz phrase in the technological bush fire that is barrelling across the world. AI and its handmaiden — machine learning — have raised the prospect of a digital world rippling with unimagined opportunities. But they also pose a grave threat to the current, cocooned, collective existence that for the most part has been unscathed by the trauma of innovation. The gravest risk is that AI could completely upend lives around the world. Even before the world and India have got their grip around the idea of Generative AI, the Narendra Modi government has approved the India AI Mission. The plan is to build a native ecosystem for AI through public-private partnership. As a first step, the Central government has committed an outlay of Rs 10,372 crore over the next five years to subsidise the costs of building AI computing capacity in the country. The plan is to build massive data centres that will trawl the huge datasets available in the country. Start-ups will gain access to this information trove and find their own Generative AI solutions to problems.

The initiative is vaguely worded and, more importantly, under-funded. But the greater disquiet is over the attempts by the government to try and erect regulatory guard rails to a phenomenon that is still in its infancy. A lot of this has to do with the fear that surrounds AI and the havoc that it can potentially wreak. Europe recently came out with the world’s first legal framework for AI. The legislation prohibits AI practices that pose unacceptable risks. At the other end of the spectrum, China framed its AI regulations that have sought to reassert State control over the dissemination of information. The United States of America has taken its own road to regulation. The Joe Biden administration has come out with an executive order that proposes measures to ensure that AI systems are safe, secure and trustworthy before companies make them public. At the heart of the regulation is the requirement that companies must share all safety test results with the US government. India has decided to place a heavy hand on the regulatory lever. In a recent advisory, the government said any testing of AI models and Generative AI software could only be carried out after it grants “explicit permission”. The AI landscape is still evolving; the advanced nations are still trying to get their regulatory game together. India must be careful not to smother innovation even before it begins to waddle.