India has waded into the global artificial intelligence debate by issuing a proposal requiring tech companies to obtain government permission before launching new models.
India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology issued the advisory to businesses on Friday. The advisory, which has not been released in the public domain but TechCrunch has reviewed a copy, also requires tech companies to ensure that their services or products “do not allow for any bias or discrimination, or threaten the integrity of the electoral process.”
While the department acknowledged that the recommendation was not legally binding, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, India’s deputy information technology minister, said the notification “suggests that this is the future of regulation.”
“We are taking this as advice today and asking you to comply,” he added.
The ministry in its advisory cited the powers conferred on it by the IT Act, 2000 and the IT Rules, 2021. It seeks “immediate effect” and requires tech companies to submit “actions taken and status reports” to the ministry within 15 days.
The new advisory also requires tech companies to “appropriately” label outputs produced by their artificial intelligence models for “possible and inherent errors or unreliability,” marking a reversal from India’s previous hands-off approach to AI regulation. Less than a year ago, the ministry declined to regulate the growth of artificial intelligence, instead deeming the industry vital to India’s strategic interests.
India’s move surprised many industry executives. Many Indian startups and venture capital firms said they were alarmed by the new proposals and believed such regulation would hinder India’s competitiveness in global competition, in which the country is already lagging behind.
“What a fool I was to think I would work to bring GenAI from San Francisco to Indian agriculture,” wrote Pratik Desai, founder of startup Kisan AI. “We are training multi-modal low-cost pest and disease models and are very excited about it. After 4 years of bringing artificial intelligence into this field full-time in India, this is terrible and frustrating.”
Many Silicon Valley leaders also criticized India’s policy shift. Aravind Srinivas, co-founder and CEO of Perplexity AI, one of the hottest artificial intelligence startups, said New Delhi’s new proposal is “bad move by india”.
Martin Casado is a partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. explain“Oh my god. What a travesty.”
The recommendation comes after Chandrasekhar expressed frustration with some of Google Gemini’s responses last month. Last month, a user asked Gemini (formerly Bard) whether Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was a fascist.
In response, Gemini quoted unnamed experts as saying that Modi has been accused of implementing policies that some view as fascist. Reacting to the exchange, Chandrasekhar warned Google that such responses were “in direct violation” of the IT Rules 2021 as well as “several provisions of the criminal code”.
The advisory added that failure to comply with the provisions of the IT Act and IT Rules would result in “potential criminal consequences for the intermediary or platform or its users if discovered”.
