Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses during the inaugural ceremony of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) Summit 2023.
Credit: PTI Photo
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for a global framework to govern Artificial Intelligence even as the US broke ranks with India, France, China and 58 other nations at a summit in Paris on Tuesday, arguing that excessive regulations could stifle the growth of the emerging technology.
The development at the AI Action Summit reveals the fissures over controlling the technology that has upended multiple sectors and triggered worries over its implications.
The summit co-chaired by Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron ended with a declaration that underlined the need to keep AI “open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy” and “sustainable for people and the planet”.
It also stressed adherence to international frameworks while promoting AI and called for greater collaboration on governing its rise.
But the US did not sign the declaration, refusing to join other nations in committing to inclusive and sustainable AI. The UK followed suit and decided against signing the declaration, which was endorsed by 61 other nations, including India.
“AI is developing at an unprecedented scale and speed. It is being adopted and deployed even faster,” Modi said in his opening statement at the summit.
“There is also deep interdependence across borders. Therefore, there is a need for collective global efforts to establish governance and standards that uphold our shared values, address risks, and build trust.”
But Modi added that “governance is not just about managing risks and rivalries, it is also about promoting innovation and deploying it for the global good”.
“So, we must think deeply and discuss openly about innovation and governance,” he said.
He underlined that governance was also about ensuring access to AI for all, especially for the Global South. “It is where the capacities are most lacking - be it compute power, talent, data, or the financial resources,” he said.
US Vice President J D Vance, however, warned against over-regulating AI. “Excessive regulation could kill a transformative sector just as it’s taking off,” said Vance, who stood in for President Donald Trump at the summit.
“We need international regulatory regimes that foster the creation of AI technology rather than strangling it,” he said, calling other nations to show “optimism rather than trepidation”.
He noted that AI was an opportunity for the US and President Donald Trump’s administration would not squander it. He stressed that “pro-growth AI policies” should be prioritised over safety.
As the summit in Paris brought to the fore the differences, New Delhi chose to join the camp publicly opposed to Washington DC, just days before Modi’s proposed meeting with Trump.
“Loss of jobs is AI’s most feared disruption. But history has shown that work does not disappear due to technology. Its nature changes and new types of jobs are created. We need to invest in skilling and re-skilling our people for an AI-driven future,” Modi said in his statement.
Modi offered to host the next year’s summit on AI in India.
“AI must be developed for global good and, for all…Other countries will do what they have to do. We, through our national AI mission, will do what we see as the right thing to do. And, this is not something in which we will necessarily be influenced, or allow ourselves to be influenced, by geopolitics,” Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri told journalists later.