Behind rollback of advisory on seeking govt nod for AI services: pushback from industry

ON MARCH 1, 2024, just months ahead of Lok Sabha elections, the IT ministry issued an advisory requiring artificial intelligence (AI) platforms to seek government permission before launching "under-testing, unreliable" services, only to go back on it a fortnight later.

- SOUMYARENDRA BARIK

While the guidance had drawn public criticism from some AI founders and investors abroad, concerns were raised by India's tech industry privately as well, according to correspondence reviewed by The Indian Express as part of a Right to Information (RTI) application.

Within a week, on March 7, 2024, the National Association of Software and Service Companies or Nasscom, India's largest tech industry lobby group, which also represents tech companies like Meta, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and other software as a service (SaaS) companies—wrote to the IT ministry, and made three key demands: relax applicability norms to limit the scope of the advisory, remove the contentious requirement for AI companies to seek government permission, and drop the need for companies to prepare an action taken and status report on account of compliance, documents inspected under RTI showed.