The Minister of Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrashekhar on Tuesday said that India is taking the lead in creating a global draft framework to regulate the harms of AI across jurisdictions by mid-2024.

Speaking at the Nasscom Technology Leadership Forum 2024, Chandrashekhar outlined the need for a global approach to tackling these harms, noting that India has taken the charge to lead this endeavor.

“As we know, AI has no boundaries and it is impossible for one country to regulate the internet and the harms on the internet caused by AI is almost always extrajurisdictional. The victim is in one jurisdiction and the perpetrator is in another jurisdiction. There is no escaping that there is a need for alignment around principles globally,” he said.

Chandrashekhar said that India has offered to lead the charge to create this draft framework. “We expect to have a draft framework discussed and debated by June-July this year, and have the mid-year GPAI summit, where, if not all countries, it is impossible to make all countries agree, but most countries including the Global South, who have long been kept out of technology..been excluded from any debate about the future of tech, that they also participate and we agree on these guidelines.” 

Rules and protocols

While Chandrashekhar said that it is yet to be seen what the shape these rules and protocols will take, “but they will essentially be around this basic principle...that any platform has to be legally accountable for any harm that is causes or enables.”

India hosted the third edition of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence in New Delhi in December last year. India is the lead chair of the GPAI summit which will take place in 2024.

The international group took the first steps in setting up a global common framework to regulate AI at the summit held in New Delhi last December. On December 15, the GPAI summit adopted the New Delhi declaration, underscoring the need to mitigate AI risks and promote equitable access across all resources. 

Chandrashekhar’s statements come at a time when countries across the globe are creating their legislative frameworks to regulate AI. EU and China have passed their respective framework. The US is also mulling its framework in a bottom-up approach. Japan is set to regulate AI in 2024, in previous reports it was suggested that it is leaning towards a more relaxed approach to regulate AI in line with the US and the UK. 

Global think tanks such as the Center for Strategic and International Studies, an organisation based in Washington DC, believe that tech companies are likely to see a fragmented regulatory landscape for AI, especially as trade conflict emerges with the EU.

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