New Delhi: “Is Modi a fascist?” Google’s AI tool, Gemini, had said yes, while it was iffy when asked the same thing about US ex-President, Donald Trump and Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Some journalists in India went onto post that they are angry about how AI was unequivocal about India’s prime minister and fascism.The Modi government threatened to prosecute AI chatbots, after one of the journalists tagged India’s junior Information Technology minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar on X and urged the government to “take note”.In less than 12 hours, the minister responded, “These are direct violations of Rule 3(1)(b) of Intermediary Rules (IT rules) of the IT act and violations of several provisions of the Criminal code. @GoogleAI @GoogleIndia @GoI_MeitY”. The minister did not explain how a statement of fact about Modi – “he has been accused of implementing policies that some experts have characterised as fascist” – violates an law. Rule 3(1)(b) only directs intermediaries (in this case Google and Google Gemini) to “make reasonable efforts to cause the users not to host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share, among others, information which deceives or misleads the addressee about the origin of the message or knowingly and intentionally communicates any misinformation or information which is patently false and untrue or misleading in nature, or impersonates another person.” How the tool violates the rule’s provisions, is hard to explain.Google buckled quickly. Semafor cited an internal memo on Gemini from Google CEO Sundar Pichai in which he said, “I know that some of its responses have offended our users and shown bias – to be clear, that’s completely unacceptable and we got it wrong.” Lawyers like Apar Gupta asked if Modi government itself has the right to determine what can and can’t be put online when it has its own political biases? “Many people have pointed out that the Minister exercising functional control of website blocking and internet censorship powers under the IT Act, 2000 is also spreading political misinformation… Is it ideal for a union minister to have such powers? Or, should they at best be exercised by a transparent and functionally autonomous entity outside the Ministry of IT? Isn’t this going to pose inherent conflicts of interest in its current form — specially in a weak rule of law society?”AI Only with Government Permission?In a fresh advisory over the weekend, minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on March 2 that it has asked artificial intelligence platforms to seek its permission before launching an AI product in the country. Moneylife reports that “all intermediaries have been told to ensure compliance with the advisory, which was issued on March 1 evening, with immediate effect and to submit an action taken-cum-status report to the ministry within 15 days.”Chandrashekhar, now a BJP candidate for the Lok Sabha polls said, “this signals that we are moving to a regime when a lot of rigour is needed before a product is launched. You don’t do that with cars or microprocessors. Why is that for such a transformative tech like AI there are no guardrails between what is in the lab and what goes out to the public.”This appears to signal a shift in India’s position on AI as India has repeatedly indicated it is gung-ho over it and Rajeev Chandrashekhar himself had said, days ago on February 20, that “India plans to introduce the first draft of AI regulations by June-July.”The advisory, which could introduce another variant of the license raj, has generated unease and anger in the sector.Today, Chandrashekhar has rushed again to ‘clarify’ whom the advisory is targeting. He said that the advisory is only for large platforms – i.e. they are the ones who will need the government’s permission – and will not apply to startups. He also wrote:“Advisory is aimed at untested AI platforms from deploying on 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“Safety & Trust of Indias Internet is a shared and common goal for Govt, users and Platforms – but questions remain about which rule/law this advisory has suddenly been issued?”Can the minister please clarify under which legal powers or statute is this “advisory” being issued? https://t.co/Mx7579JCxT— Apar (@apar1984) March 4, 2024Meanwhile, this ‘clarification’ too has the government tangled in knots. For instance, the line on the “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” has led people in the tech space to ask as to how the government provide insurance to private AI tools.Thank you for the clarification. How can GoI provide insurance for a private action between parties? State can pay no role in a private lawsuit.— Mishi Choudhary (@MishiChoudhary) March 4, 2024Anger over Knee-Jerk ‘Advisory’ Bindu Reddy, CEO of AbacusAI, which uses “Gen AI to build Applied AI and LLM agents and systems at scale” has said, “India just kissed its future goodbye! Every company deploying a GenAI model now requires approval from the Indian government! That is, you now need approval for merely deploying a 7b open-source model.”Reddy spoke of perils of applications in triplicate but importantly, underlining how exercising control like this could allow other local monopolies to grow. “If you know the Indian government, you know this will a huge drag! All forms will need to completed in triplicate and there will be a dozen hoops to jump through!” This is how monopolies thrive, countries decay and consumers suffer! Sadly India is already dominated by monopolies, nepotism and bureaucracy and this new rule just made it far worse.”India’s reputation as a capital for crony capitalism has been soaring. In May last year, The Economist named Russia and India as the most crony capitalist in the world. Monopoly of Reliance across media, on data, via Jio and now potentially in the world of infotainment after tying up with Walt Disney is ringing alarm bells.Techcrunch has reported that while India’s Ministry of Electronics and IT issued the advisory to firms on Friday, the advisory, has not been published in the public domain “but a copy of which TechCrunch has reviewed,” also asks tech firms to ensure that their services or products “do not permit any bias or discrimination or threaten the integrity of the electoral process.” Techcrunch says that “many Indian startups and VCs say they have been spooked by the new advisory and believe such regulation will hinder the nation’s ability to compete in the global race, where it is already lagging behind.” It cites Pratik Desai, founder of startup Kisan AI, “I was such a fool thinking I will work bringing Gen AI to Indian agriculture from SF,” He adds, “We were training multimodal low cost pest and disease model, and so excited about it. This is terrible and demotivating after working 4yrs full time brining AI to this domain in India.”Many Silicon Valley leaders have also hit out at what the portal terms “India’s policy shift.” Aravind Srinivas, co-founder and chief executive of Perplexity AI, one of the hottest AI start-ups, said the new advisory from New Delhi was a “bad move by India.”Martin Casado, a partner at venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, is quoted as having said, “Good fu****g lord. What a travesty.”India Tops Misinformation IndexOddly, India has also been marked out as the topmost country in the world over misinformation, by a recent report by the World Economic Forum, but that has hardly raised any hackles in government. The Washington Post in a series of articles has written on how ruling party campaign activities are also in sync with rapid misinformation and divisive messaging spread online.The India Cable reported last week that India’s IT minister had first warned Google when Bard – the earlier avatar of Gemini – described the pro-Modi right-wing propaganda site ‘Opindia’ as well as Modi’s own social media handles as biased and unreliable. The minister accused Google of bias and warned of police action against it. Google did not respond then.But there appears to now be rising rightwing anger in the West over AI, and especially Google Gemini. The Modi government, may be a beneficiary of what appears to be coordinated action by right wingers around the world over this AI tool.Lawyer Nikhil Pahwa has warned this morning on the importance of making and evaluating digital and tech policy carefully, given that 2024 is “the election of Deep Fakes, particularly malicious deep fakes.” What does the advisory sayThe advisory issued by Cyber Law and Data Governance Group, which operates under MeitY, mandates that all intermediaries or platforms using artificial intelligence models or algorithms must ensure their users do not host, display, or share unlawful content as outlined in IT Rules. Additionally, platforms are required to prevent bias, discrimination, or threats to the electoral process through their computer resources.“All intermediaries or platforms to ensure that use of artificial intelligence model(s)/Generative AI/ software/algorithm(s) on or through its computer resource does not permit its users to host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share any unlawful content as outlined in the Rule 3(1)(b) of the IT Rules or violate any other provision of the IT Act,” says the advisory.“All intermediaries or platforms to ensure that their computer resource do not permit any bias or discrimination or threaten the integrity of the electoral process including via the use of artificial intelligence model(s)/Generative AI/ software/algorithm(s),” it says.The advisory issued by the Cyber Law and Data Governance Group.It further says that all users must be clearly informed through the terms of services and user agreements about the consequences of dealing with unlawful information on its platform, including disabling of access to or removal of non-compliant information, or suspension or termination of access or usage rights of their user account, and punishment under applicable law.All intermediaries are requested, per the advisory, to submit an action taken-cum-status report to the ministry within 15 days of this advisory.
