Need for a Legal Framework for AI in India

What is the issue?

Artificial Intelligence-/AI-driven tech will become counterproductive if a legal framework is not devised to regulate it.

What are the recent developments?

• Recently, the Kerala police inducted a robot for police work.
• Around the same time, Chennai got its second robot-themed restaurant.
• Here, robots not only serve as waiters but also interact with customers in English and Tamil.
• In Ahmedabad, a cardiologist performed the world’s first in-human telerobotic coronary intervention on a patient nearly 32 km away.
• All these examples symbolise the arrival of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in everyday lives of human beings.

What are the global measures in this regard?

• Only recently, there has been interest across the world to develop a law on smart technologies.
• In the U.S., discussions are being taken up about regulation of AI.
• Germany has come up with ethical rules for autonomous vehicles.
• It stipulates that human life should always have priority over property or animal life.
• China, Japan and Korea are following Germany in developing a law on self-driven cars.

What is the need now in India?

• Traffic accidents lead to about 400 deaths a day in India, 90% of which are caused by preventable human errors.
• Autonomous vehicles that rely on AI can reduce this significantly, through smart warnings and preventive and defensive techniques.
• Patients dying due to non-availability of specialised doctors can be prevented with AI reducing the distance between patients and doctors.
• AI has several positive applications, as seen in the above examples.
• AI systems have the capability to learn from experience and to perform autonomously for humans.
• This also makes AI the most disruptive and self-transformative technology of the 21st century.
• So, if AI is not regulated properly, it is bound to have unmanageable implications.
• E.g. the consequence if electricity supply suddenly stops while a robot is performing a surgery and access to a doctor is lost
• These questions have already confronted courts in the U.S. and Germany.
• All countries, including India, need to be legally prepared to face such kind of disruptive technology.

What are the challenges involved?

• Predicting and analysing legal issues in regards with AI use and their solutions are not that simple.
• E.g. an AI-based driverless car getting into an accident that causes harm to humans or damages property
• In such cases, criminal law may face drastic challenges as the party to be held liable is disputable.

How is the AI policy progress in India?

• In India, NITI Aayog released a policy paper, ‘National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence’, in June 2018.
• The paper considered the importance of AI in different sectors.
• The Budget 2019 also proposed to launch a national programme on AI.
• But notably, all these developments are taking place on the technological front.
• No comprehensive legislation to regulate this growing industry has been formulated in India till date.

What should the priorities be?

• The first need is to have a legal definition of AI in place.
• It is essential to establish the legal personality of AI which means AI will have a bundle of rights and obligations, in the context of India’s criminal law jurisprudence.
• Since AI is considered to be inanimate, a liability scheme that holds the producer or manufacturer of the product liable for harm must be considered.
• Moreover, since privacy is a fundamental right, certain rules to regulate the usage of data possessed by an AI entity should be framed.
• This should be a part of the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2018.

Source: The Hindu