India is determined to continue making efforts to use Artificial Intelligence in public interest and as a force for progress and prosperity.
After offering to host the next AI Action summit later this year,
Prime Minister Narendra Modi presented glimpses of the AI Action Summit by putting out a few pictures on X with the post, “Nations are coming together to shape the future of AI—collaborating to ensure innovation is inclusive and transformative.”
Modi said, “We will keep working to make AI a force for progress and prosperity.”
Modi is on a two-day visit to France at the invitation of the French President Emmanuel Macron.
The AI Action Summit in Paris is the third in the series of AI summits.
Last summer, Seoul hosted the AI Summit.
Replying to questions at a media briefing on Prime Minister Modi’s ongoing visit, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said, ” I would go by what the Prime Minister emphasized in his remarks today, that AI must be developed for the global good and it must be developed for all.”
Misri added that through its national AI mission, India will do what it sees is the right thing to do.
“And this is not something in which we will necessarily be influenced by geopolitics. Our emphasis is going to be on outcomes and deliver the greatest good for the greatest number of people.”
Misri said that the Summit has added yet another aspect to the growing India-France strategic partnership.
S. Krishnan, Secretary, MeitY (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology), said that India has given a commitment to AI for public interest.
He said that the second major outcome of the summit was India’s endorsement of the leader’s statement on inclusive and sustainable AI.
He added, ” India has also joined the coalition on sustainable AI, ensuring AI’s alignment with the environmental and sustainable development goals.”
Krishnan joined Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri, India’s Ambassador to France, Sanjeev Singla and Joint Secretary (Cyber Diplomacy) in the Ministry of External Affairs, Amit A. Shukla, at the media briefing.
Asked what India has done for the Global South, Krishnan said that India brought AI into the G20 narrative and part of the G 20 declaration focussed on what needs to be done in terms of AI and inclusive AI.
” And even at that stage, the African Union and various other entities were brought into G20. So, it was fairly clear that we were speaking up for the Global South in this particular space.”
He added that India is working very closely with the Global South on expanding the scope and deployment of digital public infrastructure.
Replying to a question about India offering to host the next AI Action Summit, the MeitY Secretary said that his ministry will work with the Ministry of External Affairs to invite countries but will give priority to countries of the Global South.
” We will make every effort to ensure greater participation from countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America,” he said.
Krishnan said that India had invited a number of countries of the Global South for the GPAI Summit and in the next summit that India hosts, it will make sure that the Global South is adequately represented.
He added, ” The Summit (in France) represents very positive outcomes, not just for India and the global south but for the world as a whole. We believe it represents a re-balancing of the approach towards AI. And therefore, the time is right for India to host, as the Prime Minister offered , and the offer was accepted that the next AI Summit would be hosted in India later this year.
In 2023, India was chair of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence.”
He added that Prime Minister Modi made the point forcefully that GPAI’s membership must be expanded.
“We believe that the possibilities of collaborating globally on harnessing the positive benefits of AI should happen, and we should also have a number of other countries participating.”
Foreign Secretary Misri said that as the visit goes on, there will be bilateral deliverables as well on the AI front.
To a question on cyber security and deep fake, Krishnan said that Indian laws have several provisions to tackle deepfakes and misrepresentation.
” The main issue with deepfake is that technology is continuously improving, which causes some delay in detection. Therefore, we would like to adopt the best possible technology as soon as possible to make detection easier for us.”
He said that the question of how personal data can be used, is being addressed through the Digital Personal Data Privacy Protection Act.
The MeitY Secretary said that India needs to focus on innovation because it can benefit a lot from AI.
On DPI collaboration with France, he said that India has been very open to such collaborations across the world. ” We believe that DPIs that India offers are relevant not just for the developing world of the Global South but can be applied even in developing countries. Applications developed in India including UPI and DigiLocker can be very useful even in the European context.”
He described India’s contribution to the success of the AI Action Summit as ” very significant.”
To a question on what India is doing about India-based chatbots, he said, ” We are using a number of chatbots already in a number of spaces including agriculture.”
