Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday highlighted the Narendra Modi government’s vision of India as a technology-driven and knowledge-based economy as she presented the Union Budget and noted the growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in India.
Even as Sitharaman announced the establishment of three centres of excellence to provide fillip to AI in the country, it is to be noted that India does not have a legal framework for Artificial Intelligence at the moment, despite the fact that the technology could be involved in serious crimes in the future. Supreme Court lawyer and cybersecurity expert Pavan Duggal had earlier said AI was coming to India in a big way and the country needs to pull up its socks in preparation.
AI Crimes
According to researchers, if AI falls into wrong hands, there are several ways the technology could be misused to trigger targeted phishing attacks, new stalking techniques and also deepfakes.
University College of London has compiled a list of 20 potential AI-enabled crimes based on academic papers, news and popular culture. This includes threats like fake audio or video to discredit public figures or influence public opinion, extorting money and impersonating a family member.
For example, ElevenLabs, a speech AI firm, recently unveiled a beta version of its platform that enables users to clone someone’s voice or develop totally new synthetic voices for text-to-speech audio. However, the company said on Twitter that it is observing a growing number of voice cloning misuse cases and is considering “implementing additional protections” as a solution to the issue.
Reports suggest that there are videos posted online with produced voices that resemble famous people reading or saying inappropriate things. Now imagine this in the Indian context — what happens if such technology is used in a country of our proportions by people with wrong intent?
Many online users still become victims of fake news every day. It will just be a matter of time before they start a brawl on social media after watching a deepfake video on a controversial matter and take it to the streets.
Can We Move Ahead?
As the government focuses on AI adoption, which was clear during the Budget announcement and MoS Rajeev Chandrasekhar’s recent statement on inclusion of the technology, News18.com spoke to Anushkaa Arora, Principal Founder of ABA Law Office, to understand the AI challenges in India.
The legal expert said it would be incorrect to state that India lacks AI-specific laws, despite the fact that many nations around the world are developing such legal framework. She explained that there are laws in India that specifically address cybercrimes, such as the Information Technology Act, 2000, and the Indian Penal Code 1860, “but yes, there is no specific legislation in India for AI”.
Arora agreed that it would be better to have a full-fledged legal framework dealing with AI first and thereafter progress in developing the same in order to avoid AI-related crimes.
“I believe that first having a check is important because currently, India is facing lots of cybercrime-related issues. Every now and then, individuals/companies are falling prey to the same and individuals along with cyber police are unaware of the integrities involved,” she added.
The expert said since the Union Budget is “targeting something big”, there must be a fool-proof legal framework with respect to AI. She suggested extensive training for police officials and sensitisation programmes for the citizens at large.
“If India enters into a massive AI platform as announced in the Union Budget with correct legal framework and further activities as suggested, this shall open floodgates to cybercrimes and worse,” noted Arora.
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