Global Summit on Artificial Intelligence
Context:
- This October, India will play home to the first-ever international summit on artificial intelligence (AI). India will also serve as the host country for the GPAI global summit in December as it is the organization’s chair. These occurrences highlight the strategic significance of AI, which is predicted to boost India’s economy by $500 billion by 2025, or 10% of the nation’s goal GDP.
The problem:
- How regulators deal with children and adolescents, a crucial (but underappreciated) demographic in this setting, is one area where India may take the lead.
- Due to the nature of internet services, many cutting-edge AI implementations are used by kids while not being intended for them.
The problem with government:
- Incentives will need to be in line with regulations in order to lessen problems with addiction, mental illness, and general safety.
- If that doesn’t happen, data-hungry AI-based digital businesses can easily use shady algorithms and dark patterns to take advantage of vulnerable children.
- This can, among other things, result in technological aberrations of the ideal physical appearance(s), which can cause problems with body image.
- Misinformation, radicalization, cyberbullying, sexual grooming, and doxxing are other harmful concerns posed by AI.
- The unintended consequences of their family’ online behaviours must also be considered by the upcoming generation of digital nagriks.
- We must give kids the tools they need to manage unforeseen consequences as they enter adolescence.
- For instance, unscrupulous actors may utilise the deep fake capabilities of AI to target young people by morphing and disseminating sexually inappropriate images online.
- India is also a crucible for intersectional identities that span gender, caste, tribal identity, religion, and linguistic history.
- Around the world, AI has a reputation for bringing prejudices and injustices from the real world into the digital one.
- Children and teenagers who are members of marginalised populations may be affected by such bias and discrimination issues.
- The recently passed data protection law in India mandates that AI regulation enhance India’s treatment of children.
- The current data protection framework’s treatment of minors is out of step with the digital landscape in India.
- It places an excessive amount of responsibility on parents to safeguard their kids’ best interests and does not promote secure platform use or platform design.
- It perplexingly reverses the well-known dynamic where a sizable portion of parents rely on their children’s aid to navigate online user interface and user experience (UI/UX) interfaces that are otherwise inaccessible.
- Additionally, it forbids tracking of children’s data by default, thus preventing them from enjoying the advantages of personalization that we enjoy online.
Changing the focus:
- Indian regulation can benefit from international best practises in identifying norms and guidelines that support safer AI implementations.
- Nine criteria for child-centered AI are outlined in UNICEF’s guidance for policymakers on AI and children, which is based on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (to which India is a signatory).
- The advice attempts to build a supportive environment that supports children’s safety, security, safety, transparency, explainability, and accountability.
- The capacity to adjust to the various developmental phases of children from various age groups will be another essential component of effective regulation.
- The Age Appropriate Design Code Act of California is a useful model.
- The Californian law pushes for openness to make sure that default privacy settings are configured, that algorithms, data gathering, and targeted advertising systems are evaluated for potential harm to minors, and that user-facing information is presented in language that is clear and age-appropriate.
- The government of India should support studies that gather data on the advantages and dangers of AI for young people in India.
- In order to develop an Indian Age Appropriate Design Code for AI, this should serve as the starting point.
- And last, better institutions will contribute to a regulatory change away from top-down safety procedures that burden parents excessively.
Conclusion:
- The interests of our young citizens must come first as we work towards a new law to control dangers on the Internet and try to build our thought leadership on global AI regulation.
