Govt's White Paper On AI: Disruptive Tech But Guardrails Needed For Ethical Use

The Centre released a 'White Paper' on AI titled Democratising Access To AI Infrastructure, according to NDTV, on Wednesday. The White Paper is expected to present guardrails for AI use with regards to the vision of 'AI For All' in India.

This implies that AI is not to be seen a proprietary product for a few companies or individuals to have control over.

These guidelines include:

• Expanding access to high-quality, representative datasets.

• Providing affordable and reliable computing resources

• Integrating AI with Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI).

Principal Scientific Adviser to Government of India, Prof. Dr. Ajay Sood told NDTV, "AI is a disruptive tech but we also need to have guardrails to ensure it's ethical use for public good."

He stated that the White Paper builds up on AI governance guidelines in terms of ethical use of AI.

Sood added that these guidelines are expected to prevent an 'AI divide' in the country, referring to a divide between those who create AI and those who use it.

He emphasied the need to democratise access to compute facilities, right data sets and other essentials of AI infrastructure. "We want to attach intelligence to data," he said.

Sood stated that AI should lead India to Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI 2.0).

DPI 2.0 involves integrating AI for 'Digital Public Intelligence' which is expected to provide smarter and more personalised services to India's citizens.

This involves multiple data driven systems working together to provide more comprehsive and efficient public services as well as an emphasis on consent based data sharing.

This is expected to improve welfare, payments and health records systems among many others, along with improved planning, targeted subsidies and fraud detection.

Examples of this include, Account Aggregator, Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission, Open Credit Enablement Network and FASTag, used for more efficient toll booth operations.