This formed the crux of the insightful discussion, ‘Responding to the Ethical AI Imperative Through India’s AI Policy and Global Regulations’ at the ET Soonicorns Summit 2024 in Bengaluru.
When asked whether ethical AI is possible, panellist Siddharth Bhardwaj, chief executor of music creator platform Beatoven.ai, quipped that it is, but that “Its cost is higher than doing things unethically, which is why unethical AI is popular”.
AI Foundry chairman and ARTPARK cofounder Umakant Soni, Agami cofounder Sachin Malhan, and Netradyne’s Chief VP of Engineering, Vinay Rai, were the other panellists at the 40-minute discussion.
While stressing the need to make training data transparent, Soni said it’s only possible to know whether something is “ethical” when used in a specific environment, or in a certain way.
“As a society, we need to reflect upon whether AI will lead to sustainable change, or be too disruptive to the way we function,” he mulled. Soni also proposed the idea of AI cities, where the emerging technology can be physically sandboxed to test whether an AI model is safe, sustainable, and ethical before finding wider adoption.
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Vinay Rai underlined that although heavy-handed government regulation is not the way to go, one must also acknowledge that not enough is being done by AI companies to prioritise guardrails and data sanctity when building AI models.”To enable the AI ecosystem, you need to ensure that all people have access. And when all people have access, bad actors are inevitable,” he said.
Agami’s Sachin Malhan, who champions open source AI as a digital public good in the realm of law and justice, said the AI infrastructure gap in India is so huge it doesn’t make sense to build physical facilities such as AI-enabled legal aid clinics or tribunals.
“The good thing is that India is quite relaxed in its regulatory approach now because it recognises that things take time. Let more people be involved and let’s learn more before we decide what the ethical framework should be,” he said.
ET Soonicorns Summit 2024 was powered by Phoenix Kessaku. Upskilling Partner: UpGrad Enterprise; Insurance Partner: PolicyBazaar for Business; Banking Partner: Bank of India. Gifting Partners: IGP.com; The Mind and Company, Plum, Clay Capital.