To address both the opportunities and the risks associated with AI, a UN Secretary General-appointed advisory body has proposed the creation of a global AI authority. The body also recommended regular intergovernmental discussions to share best practices for AI governance.
The key question remains: how do we balance innovation with safety? Will AI regulations gain momentum in 2025? CNBC-TV18 explored these issues with Ambassador Amandeep Gill, Tech Envoy for the UN Secretary General; Sharad Sharma, Co-Founder of the iSPIRT Foundation; and Astha Kapoor, Co-Founder of the Aapti Institute.
Below are the excerpts of the discussion.
Q: In October 2023, a high-level committee was formed. Eleven months later, in September last year, you came out with this report. I think the one message that at least between stakeholders has gathered momentum is that any isolated governance framework will not work. This is a distributed technology. We need a distributed governance system. Is that the message that came to you when you came out with this report in September last year? That we need more global cooperation for building a global framework, a global governance framework?
Gill: Absolutely. This is a very powerful technology. Its implications extend beyond the private sector, the economic dimension to political, social, and cultural dimensions, and it affects people everywhere. Everyone must be part of the governance effort. That’s why the report of this advisory body was titled Governing AI for Humanity.
If the benefits are concentrated in a few geographies, in a few companies, and if the burdens and the risks are unfairly loaded onto some others, then we have a very unfair situation. And to address that, the first step, the fundamental step, is to bring everyone into the conversation on the governance of these technologies.
Q: When we talk of bringing everyone together, all the stakeholders together, I’ll just borrow from a study that came out just a couple of days ago, which is the World Economic Forum (WEF) report. It talked about how international cooperation has stagnated over the last 12 months. They’ve cited uncertainty, geopolitical tensions, and risks of conflict. In this atmosphere, how viable is it and how feasible is it in 2025? Do you see that happening—that despite the conflict, you have countries coming together at a consensus on governing AI? Do you see that happening?
Sharma: This report itself is a product of such a kind of consensus that emerged. And Ambassador Gill was responsible for kind of bringing everybody together. And he was masterful in kind of drawing out the synergies and even the differences so that you could discuss them openly and come to some kind of consensus. So, it is possible. It is effortful, as it should be. But it is feasible.
Having said that, many opinions are there. And for change, India has a very clear position on what it wants to see happen in the digital AI world, which is informed by its own domestic needs. And, increasingly, both India and the world are waking up to the fact that if you can make it work in India, it will work anywhere in the world. These experiments that India is doing will inform global thinking as well as we deploy them and see whether they work or not.
Q: The Trump presidency is just a few days away. January 20th is what many people are referring to as D-Day, where the dynamics of international conversations will change. What’s also interesting is that he’s flanked by Elon Musk, who, of course, is very vocal, has strong views on this technology and how it is to be governed going forward. This combine, Trump and Musk, put together, what does that do to the conversation on governance, especially when there are strong views not just on AI by Donald Trump and Musk, but also on China? What does that do to this conversation on governance?
Kapoor: There is a unique opportunity for India, as well as the global south, to take a leadership position in that. Technology is one of the things that is experienced pretty equally across the world, whether it’s the harms or the opportunities from it. And that is what we’re seeing; we’re having this conversation a few days after the DPDP rules have come out. There’s a new guideline for AI governance that’s also come out in India. Several other countries are also working towards their governance frameworks. Yes, it will be disruptive. But it’s also an opportunity to crack open some of these conversations and create a multipolarity around the governance of this. And it’s a huge opportunity for India, which is data-rich, it’s eager to govern, it has a lot of innovation potential, and the conversation revolves around the fact that we are the cradle of humanity, so I think that there’s a lot of opportunity for us to take a leadership role. Yes, disruptive, but also potentially an opportunity.
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