AI has increased efficiency, but its misuse presents serious challenges: Om Birla

New Delhi: Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla and Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh on Thursday cautioned against the misuse of Artificial Intelligence (AI) while highlighting the importance of institutional memory of humans in shaping application of technology in legislatures.

At the inaugural session of the 28th Conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers of the Commonwealth (CSPOC) in the Central Hall of Samvidhan Sadan, Birla said AI and social media have enhanced the efficiency and effectiveness of democratic institutions.

However, he said, their misuse has also given rise to serious concerns such as misinformation, cybercrime and social polarisation while emphasising that it is a collective responsibility of legislatures to engage seriously with these challenges and evolve appropriate solutions.

Underscoring the growing importance of ethical AI and credible, transparent and accountable social media frameworks in safeguarding democratic values, he said Indian Parliament and Assemblies are being progressively made paperless and integrated through a unified digital platform, setting new benchmarks in transparency, efficiency and accessibility.

At a session on ‘AI in Parliament: Balancing Innovation, Oversight and Adaptation’, Harivansh said institutional knowledge of humans is central to developing accountable AI for Parliaments.

Emphasising that innovation without restraint carries risk while restraint without innovation can lead to stagnation, he said Parliament must maintain a careful and deliberate balance between the two.

Insisting that AI in legislatures must be “rooted in truth, bound by ethics, guided by human judgment and accountable to democratic values”, he said human oversight and the ability to intervene must be integral to the system.

“When a human enters a new organisation, they bring with them two essential attributes – skill and knowledge. Skills can be acquired, transferred, or outsourced. Knowledge, however, is contextual and deeply embedded within the institution. Parliamentary knowledge is unique. It is built over decades through debates, rulings, conventions, and constitutional practices. The same principle applies equally to AI,” he said.

Harivansh highlighted the cases of AI usage in Parliament, which included use of models to carry out translation of business documents, analysis of Parliamentary debates and framing of questions across 22 languages.

“We have developed a Parliamentary Language Dictionary consisting of approximately 48,000 terms, which has been integrated into a custom AI model designed exclusively for parliamentary use. This has significantly increased acceptability among internal users and improved its accuracy. Human translators remain firmly in control, with AI serving as an assistive tool,” he added.