Ethical development and regulation of AI major talk point at G20 Leaders' Summit: sources

Artificial Intelligence (AI), especially generative AI, and its economic impact on the world was a major talk point at the G20 Leaders' Summit in New Delhi held on September 9th and 10th, a highly placed government official told Business Today.

"The Leaders are acutely aware of the potential of AI, more importantly generative AI. And the topic was also discussed at length by the leaders during the summit," the source said.

Generative AI has been in the spotlight ever since OpenAI launched ChatGPT in November 2022. Concerns have been raised around its impact on jobs, especially white-collar jobs which can be replaced by AI models at scale.

The government official also highlighted those discussions on AI's economic impact was also discussed by the G20 members, but they added that more data and research is required to understand the impact of the emerging technology.

The government official said, "The leaders also concluded that to assess impact of generative AI's impact on jobs and economy more research and data is required."

Stakeholders and industry insiders have also been concerned around regulations around AI. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI told Business Today during his visit to India earlier this year, "Policy makers need to ensure that regulations promote innovation and don't strangle it."

The G20 Leaders' also discussed the development of AI and ethical concerns around it. Moreover, it is expected that global AI regulation would be an important discussion at G20 Brazil, the government official noted.

Business Today had reported earlier that the stakeholders of the Indian AI industry are seeking global regulations that promote anti-competitive practices that prevent big tech monopolies.