In the last few years, Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) is set in rapid motion through cognitive computing, deep learning, natural language processing, big data analytics, image recognition, speech recognition and machine learning. AI has mesmerized all of us, it’s everywhere, in every sector now and growing rampantly through all smart devices and equipment. Both large and small companies are investing substantially on AI, and given its faster pace of growth, it is imperative that we are prepared to face the ethical and legal challenges it could masquerade.
Taking up details from AI blog spots – USA and China are two leading countries in AI. AI is going to be the technology to watch out for. AI business start-ups in health care, education, automation of processes are going to be big gainers and AI could add as much as USD xxx billion to Indian Economy. We see many symposiums being set up by countries leading on AI technologies and globally many discussion papers being released but so far haven’t heard any specific legislation passed by any country to regulate AI overall.
Regulatory Framework: Since AI is here to stay, we have to primarily understand that AI makes its own rules from all available data and as the very famous axiom goes – ABSOLUTE POWER TENDS TO CORRUPT ABSOLUTELY, it’s precarious if we do not have a regulatory framework for unsupervised AI. Thus, Indian law makers should take effective measures to fill regulatory gaps and provide suitable legal framework for governance of AI. Ensuing, we have to also be accelerative in implementing persuasive mechanisms – means, methods, standards and systems in areas of safety, quality, data security, privacy, intellectual property and liability and establish review committees for ways, processes and structures under the regulatory framework.
Cambridge Analytica and Facebook hullabaloo makes it even more pressing on addressing the challenges of protecting personal information, collecting, handling, processing, storage, and penalties and strict compliance in India.
There is no AI without information architecture. Information architecture is analytics and for analytics you need data. Since data is the most important part in any of AI technology/solutions, its increasing use has more propensity to security and privacy breaches. In the context of data protection bill, India still has a long way to go in ensuring data security. Our Data protection framework for AI should address challenges such as data usage without consent, identification of individuals, selection bias. NITI Aayog’s report on India’s approach to leadership in AI states that to “reap the benefits of deploying AI at large scale, one of the barriers that needs to be addressed is Privacy and security, including a lack of formal regulations around anonymization of data”.
The other major issue plaguing AI is existing IP laws in India. Since AI is all about innovation and creation, time has come for us where challenges of IP issues have to be addressed and there is no choice. IP not only pertains to patents, trademarks, copyright and industrial design it also extends to trade secrets and confidential information. IP framework in India doesn’t cover trade secrets and confidential information and this again has its own challenges. Since all IP’s have major relevance to AI, India should focus on strengthening of IP regime especially patent, trademark and copyright laws and introducing provisions for safeguarding trade secrets and confidential information.
One other concern for AI companies is to look at is to protect itself from third party IP infringement claims, as these come with huge liabilities. Reason for potential infringement claims in AI systems is that they act unsupervised most often. Having an IP strategy for AI systems that would level out IP rights at each stage, helping AI owners to noticeably outline and defend their IP rights, and going for suitable certifications, documentations and registrations is arguably most needed.
For now, in the absence of suitable legal framework, one the option AI owners have is to go with well-defined AI agreements – AI contracts are imperative to help parties to cope with risks, as they would clearly underline roles, responsibilities and obligations of each of the party in contracts and this would later help in deciding the liabilities of the parties. For eg., in auto pilot vehicles – in case of accidents, contracts would help to decide on liability part – is it the software developer, manufacturer of car or the person at the steering wheel who is liable for causing accident. Similarly, in AI Algorithm for scanning diseases – in case of wrong or mis-diagnosis will it be the doctor prescribing such scan or medical technician conducting such scan or AI developer who will be responsible towards patient for damages. Some of the other aspects we need to consider in AI-based contractual arrangements are applicable law, warranties, insurance, SLAs, IPRs, audit rights, knowledge transfer, IP ownership.
In conclusion, AI is going to be the game changer in technology space and comes with many challenges listed above. India can unbridle the immense potential it holds in this fast-growing technology space by having suitable legal and IP framework.
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