India has entered a global debate on artificial intelligence by issuing an advisory requiring “major” tech companies to get government permission before launching new models.
India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology issued the advisory to companies on Friday. The advisory — which was not released in the public domain, but a copy of which has been reviewed by TechCrunch — also asks tech companies to ensure that their services or products “do not enable any bias or discrimination or threaten the integrity of the electoral process.”
Although the ministry admits the advisory is not legally binding, India’s IT minister of state Rajeev Chandrasekhar says the notice “signals that this is the future of regulation.” He adds: “We are doing this as an advisory today asking you to comply with this.”
In a tweet on Monday, Chandrasekhar said the advisory is aimed at “unproven AI platforms being deployed on the Indian internet” and does not apply to startups.
The ministry is invoking the powers granted to it through the IT Act 2000 and the IT Rules 2021 in its advisory. It seeks compliance with “immediate effect” and asks tech companies to submit the “Status Received Report” to the ministry within 15 days.
The new advisory, which also asks tech companies to “adequately” characterize the “potential and inherent error or unreliability” of the output their AI models produce, marks a reversal from India’s previous approach to AI regulation intelligence. Less than a year ago, the ministry had refused to regulate the development of artificial intelligence, instead identifying the sector as vital to India’s strategic interests.
India’s move has taken many industry executives by surprise. Many Indian startups and VCs say they are spooked by the new advisory and believe such a regulation will hinder the nation’s ability to compete in the global race, where it is already lagging behind.
“I was so foolish to think that I would work on bringing GenAI to Indian agriculture from SF.” He wrote Pratik Desai, founder of startup Kisan AI. “We’ve been training a low-cost multimodal pest and disease model and we’re so excited about it. This is terrible and disheartening after 4 years of full time bringing AI to this field in India.”
Many Silicon Valley leaders also criticized India’s policy change. Aravind Srinivas, co-founder and CEO of Perplexity AI, one of the hottest AI startups, said the new consultancy from New Delhi was a “bad move from India.”
Martin Casado, partner at venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, he said, “Good fucking lord. What a travesty.”
The advice follows Chandrasekhar voicing his frustration at a specific response from Google’s Gemini last month. A user last month asked Gemini, formerly known as Bard, if Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was a fascist.
In response, Gemini – citing experts he did not identify – said Modi had been accused of implementing policies that some had described as fascist. Chandrasekhar responded to the exchange by warning Google that such responses were “direct violations” of IT rules 2021 as well as “several provisions of the Penal Code.”
Failure to comply with the provisions of the IT Act and IT rules would result in “potential criminal consequences for intermediaries or platforms or their users when detected,” the advisory added.
