‘We will launch India AI mission’: Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw at Global IndiaAI Summit 2024

The Global IndiaAI Summit 2024 has commenced in India and is happening in New Delhi. Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw opened the summit, emphasising India's leadership role as the Lead Chair of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI). The event brought together experts and member countries to discuss safe, secure, and trustworthy AI.

Vaishnaw stressed Prime Minister Modi's vision of democratising technology. The Union Cabinet has recently approved India's AI mission, with the ministry working on laying the foundations. The mission aims to harness AI's power in critical sectors such as agriculture, education, healthcare, medicine, and pharmaceuticals.

"The Union cabinet had approved India's AI mission a few months back. The ministry is working on the foundations and the groundwork for setting up the India AI mission," Vaishnaw explained. "In the coming few months, we will be launching the mission so that the power and potential of AI can be harnessed in the agriculture, education, healthcare, medicine, pharmaceuticals, and all these sectors that are relevant to our society."

Vaishnaw highlighted India's active participation in global AI discussions throughout the year, focusing on both the potential and risks of AI. He mentioned that the EU has already passed a law, the US has issued an executive order, and the UN has set up a dedicated body for AI issues.

“One of the major focuses of this summit is how society harnesses the potential of AI,” Vaishnaw said. “In many countries, lots of activity related to containing the risks related to AI has happened. There is a regulation, and already a law has been passed in the EU. The US has passed an executive order. Globally, the UN has set up a separate body to deliberate about AI."

Vaishnaw also pointed out the threat of disinformation, misinformation, and fake news, which has been amplified by AI. This issue is not unique to India but is a global concern. He mentioned that societies and governments are responding thoughtfully to these new risks.

“In the recent general elections, we have seen how disinformation, misinformation, and fake news can be a big threat. That threat gets multiplied manifold by the power of AI. This is not something which only we are experiencing, the entire world has experienced the same,” Vaishnaw stated. “Every society and government is feeling the same threat from the emergence of new risks based on AI. The societies are responding in very methodical and thought-through ways."

The minister emphasised the need to figure out appropriate limits for AI technology and how it can be integrated with social and democratic institutions. "As we look at the potential of AI, we also need to collectively figure out a way, and what limits we need to pose on the technology, how this can be properly integrated with our social and democratic institutions."

Open AI VP Srinivas Narayanan also shared his insights during the summit keynote. He noted that AI models like GPT have significantly impacted people's daily lives, including in India. Narayanan highlighted AI's role in creating new interfaces for computing and its use in various industries worldwide. He praised the dynamism of India's entrepreneurial ecosystem and how AI is helping developers innovate by reducing the cost of intelligence and enabling conversational computing interfaces.