GS Paper III 

News Excerpt:

The EU has become the first continent to set clear rules for the use of AI. The European Parliament will now vote on the proposed AI Act early next year, and the legislation is likely to come into force by 2025.

Key highlights in EU Framework:

• Restrictions on Usage: The deal includes strong restrictions on facial recognition technology and on using AI to manipulate human behaviour, alongside provisions for tough penalties for companies breaking the rules. 
• Governments can only use real-time biometric surveillance in public areas only when there are serious threats involved, such as terrorist attacks.
• Grievance system: Consumers have been empowered to launch complaints against any perceived violations.
• EU legal framework broadly divides AI applications into various risk classes:
• Some applications will be largely banned, including the deployment of facial recognition on a mass scale, with some exemptions for law enforcement.
• AI applications focused on behavioural control will be also banned.
• High-risk applications such as the use of AI tools for self-driving cars will be allowed, but subject to certification and an explicit provision for the backend techniques to be made open to public scrutiny.
• Those applications that fall in the “medium risk” category can be deployed without restrictions, such as generative AI chatbots.
• But there has to be detailed documentation of how the tech works and users have to be explicitly made aware that they are dealing with an AI and not interacting with a human. 
• Developers will need to comply with transparency obligations before they release chatbots into the markets, including details about the contents used for training the algorithm.

EU’s leadership on AI regulation:

• Over the last decade, Europe has taken a decisive lead over the US on tech regulation, with overarching laws safeguarding online privacy, regulations to curb the dominance of the tech majors, and new legislation to protect its citizens from harmful online content.
• The EU has enforced the landmark GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) since May 2018 which is focused on privacy and requires individuals to give explicit consent before their data can be processed and is now a template being used by over 100 countries.
• There are a pair of sub-legislations – the Digital Services Act (DSA) and the Digital Markets Act (DMA) – that take off from the GDPR’s overarching focus on the individual’s right over her data.
• DSA focuses on issues such as regulating hate speech, counterfeit goods, etc., 
• DMA focuses on non-competitive practices and the abuse of dominance by these players.

Global AI regulations:

• The US has attempted to take the lead by way of the White House Executive Order on AI.
• Washington released a blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights – seen as a building block for the subsequent executive order.
• UK follows a ‘light-touch’ approach that aims to foster innovation in the field of AI.
• China has released its own set of measures to regulate AI.
• India’s approach to AI:
• India emphasizes developing its sovereign AI.
• India is hoping to focus on real-life applications of the tech in healthcare, agriculture, governance, language translation, etc., to catalyze economic development.

Global concerns regarding regulations of AI:

• The concerns being flagged fall into three broad heads: privacy, system bias, and violation of intellectual property rights. 
• The policy response has been different across the globe -  
• While the EU has taken a tougher stance based on the degree of invasiveness and risk; 
• The UK follows a ‘light-touch’ approach that aims to foster innovation in this nascent field. 
• The US approach slots somewhere in between.