The government on Wednesday reiterated that it is pro-innovation and does not want to over-regulate when it comes to Artificial Intelligence (AI), but also underlined that it will not hesitate to introduce legislation and new laws if necessary.

In a fireside chat with Satya Nadella, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft, Jitin Prasada, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology, said: “We are aware of the risks involved in AI. During the last Lok Sabha elections, a deepfake of the Home Minister went viral. These are the challenges and there is misinformation… I must tell you that if the challenge becomes bigger, the government will not hesitate in bringing in legislation and new laws to tackle this issue.”

The Minister said that, for the moment, the government is pro-innovation although there are laws and intermediary guidelines that have been set. But they exist more in the form of self-regulation. India is pro-innovation which is why Microsoft and the big tech companies are invested here.

Building trust

Nadella concurred and said big tech and technology as an industry have to take responsibility and scale up in a manner so that unintended consequences don’t outrun the benefits.

“That’s one of the reasons why we have the set of principles around AI, safety, security and privacy, and each step of the way, we’re not just talking about the new capability, we’re talking about this capability with the guarantees around privacy, security and safety, and that’s the only way to earn…Trust is not something I can claim, you have to earn it. But, that’s the way we talk about it. When you’re building technologies that can change the world, you can build them responsibly,” Nadella said.

Investment barrier

In response to a question by Abhishek Singh, Additional Secretary at MeitY, on whether India should build its own AI foundational model, Nadella said that India always has the option to do that but the real entry barrier in making foundational models is investment.

“There’s no reason why India can’t do frontier work, but you can even define frontier pretty unique. So for example, I don’t think the last known big breakthrough in the AI frontier has happened. I always say we are one mathematical breakthrough away from that entire edifice being thrown out and going after something else,” the Microsoft Chief added.