Ashwini Vaishnaw open to new laws on social media accountability & AI governance

Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, Railways and Information & Broadcasting, while addressing questions on AI governance and development in Parliament, highlighted the critical challenges posed by the emerging AI landscape, social media accountability, and the need for robust legal frameworks. The Minister underlined the importance of balancing freedom of speech with the responsibility to combat fake news and ensure accurate narratives in the digital age.

“It is a major challenge that societies across the world are facing—the accountability of social media, particularly in the context of fake news and the creation of fake narratives,” Vaishnaw remarked. He emphasised that establishing societal and legal accountability requires a significant consensus. “These are the issues where freedom of speech comes on one hand and accountability and having a proper real news network getting created, on the other hand. These are things which need to be debated and if the house agrees and if there is a consensus in the entire society we can come up with the new law,” he added.

The Union Minister also addressed concerns about privacy and Artificial Intelligence (AI) governance, sharing details of proactive measures taken by the government to develop indigenous tools and technologies.

He said that under the AI Mission, one of the key pillars is Application Development, focusing on innovations that align with India’s unique requirements. “To address the emerging landscape of AI, we have initiated eight projects aimed at creating tools and technologies within the country” he added in a press release. 

The 'Safe & Trusted AI' Pillar has selected various projects aimed at addressing key issues in AI development and governance. These include IIT Jodhpur's project on 'Machine Unlearning' to improve generative foundation models, IIT Roorkee's work on synthetic data generation to mitigate bias in datasets and machine learning pipelines, and the National Institute of Technology Raipur's AI bias mitigation strategy for healthcare systems.

Additionally, DIAT Pune and Mindgraph Technology Pvt. Ltd. are collaborating on an explainable AI framework for security, while IIT Delhi, IIIT Delhi, IIT Dharwad, and the Telecommunication Engineering Center (TEC) are focused on privacy-preserving machine learning models. Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham and TEC are developing an AI governance testing framework for large language models, and IIIT Delhi and TEC are working on an AI ethical certification framework to assess AI model fairness. Lastly, Civic Data Labs is creating 'ParakhAI,' an open-source framework for participatory algorithmic auditing.

“Ethical issues in AI are a global concern, and India is committed to addressing these challenges through robust debate and responsible innovation. The tools developed under these projects will ensure that India stays at the forefront of ethical AI development,” Vaishnaw explained.

The Minister also highlighted India’s global leadership in AI. “India is one of the leading countries in shaping global thought on AI governance. Last year, India became the chair of Global Partnership on AI (GPAI) and held the Summit this year, and India’s voice continues to hold significant weight in discussions with international bodies, including the OECD and United Nations,” he said.