NEW DELHI: Participation of the Global South will be a priority for the next AI Summit to be hosted by India later this year as the government believes the technology must be developed in an inclusive manner for global public good, top Indian officials said on Tuesday.
India’s focus will be more on innovation and outcomes that drive productivity and create jobs, since issues related to AI regulation are already addressed under existing laws such as the Information Technology Act and Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, foreign secretary Vikram Misri and electronics and information technology secretary S Krishnan told a media briefing in Paris.
The officials, speaking at the conclusion of the AI Action Summit co-chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron, made it clear that India would strike its own path on AI while giving priority to the needs of Global South countries.
While other countries or tech enterprises may be in a race over AI, India will push for outcomes and objectives to increase global public good, Misri said. Krishnan said 80 countries and organisations were present at the summit in Paris, and India will invite more countries to its summit later this year, with priority to the Global South, especially countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America.
India’s focus is “primarily on innovation, and regulation currently is secondary”, as issues such as deep fakes, misrepresentation, copyright, and data privacy are addressed under existing laws, Krishnan said. “So the focus from our side needs to be much more on innovation because we believe that benefits for a country like India are tremendous from AI,” he said.
Misri added: “Other countries will do what they have to do, we, through our National AI Mission, will do what we see is the right thing to do and this is not something in which we will allow ourselves to be influenced by geopolitics.”
India, Krishnan said, made significant contributions to the Paris summit through its participation in five working groups. There was also wide acceptance of the views of Indian technical experts, academia and private sector on matters such as regulation.
He said India’s emphasis at the Paris summit was on opportunities for positive development presented by AI, including innovation and greater productivity. India endorsed the leaders’ statement on inclusive and sustainable AI and committed itself to “AI for public interest”, another major outcome of the summit.
India and France co-chaired a working group on the global governance of AI, which will identify gaps in governance systems across major international organisations, Krishnan said.
India is also working with the Global South countries on expanding the use of digital public infrastructure (DPI), which can lead to greater use of AI, Krishnan said. It already has MoUs with 17 countries on rolling out India’s DPI and India’s large STEM human resource base can help other countries cope with the challenges of AI, he added.