In June 2018, the Indian government defined a national policy on artificial intelligence (AI) in a discussion paper titled National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence #AIforAll. The NITI Aayog document identified five focus areas where the development of AI could enable both growth and greater inclusion: healthcare, agriculture, education, urban / smart infrastructure , as well as transport and mobility. The document also addressed five obstacles to overcome.

These included lack of research expertise, lack of enabling data ecosystems, high cost of resources and low adoption awareness, lack of privacy and security regulations, and the lack of a collaborative approach to adoption and applications.

In 2017, Canada became the first country to adopt a national AI strategy; since then, at least 60 countries have adopted some form of policy for AI.

The prospect of an estimated 16%, or $ 13 trillion, increase in global production by 2030 has led to an unprecedented race to promote the adoption of AI in industry, markets and markets. consumption and government services. Global business investment in AI is estimated to have reached $ 60 billion in 2020 and is expected to more than double by 2025.

Work on developing global standards for AI has led to important developments in various international bodies, a recent report from the Brookings Institute points out.

These encompass both the technical aspects of AI in standards development organizations (SDOs) such as the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and the Institute of Engineers. electricians and electronics engineers (IEEE), among others, and the ethical and political dimensions of responsible AI.

Countries that aspire to great power status, such as the BRICS countries, will increasingly need to focus their diplomatic efforts to ensure that they have weight in these bodies. The Group of Seven (G7) has already agreed to establish the Global AI Partnership, a multi-stakeholder initiative working on projects to explore regulatory issues and opportunities for AI development.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), meanwhile, launched the AI ​​Policy Observatory to support and inform AI policy-making. Several other international organizations have become active in developing proposed frameworks for the development of AI.

However, statements by various public and private organizations aimed at guiding the development of responsible AI have so far mainly focused on general principles. But now the commercial objective is there – efforts to implement these principles through a full-fledged policy framework have begun.

Canada’s Guideline on the Use of AI in Government, Singapore’s Model AI Governance Framework, Japanese Social Principles of Human-Centered AI, and UK Guidelines on Understanding AI ethics and security are seen as pioneers in this regard.

More recently, the EU’s proposal for the adoption of an AI regulation marked the first attempt to introduce a comprehensive legislative regime governing AI. To align policy-making efforts, the world must focus on the most compelling reason for stepping up international cooperation – AI research and development is an increasingly complex and resource-intensive enterprise in which scale is an important advantage and the first step.

THE STATESMAN (INDIA) / ASIA INFORMATION NETWORK