Why India's draft AI norms have sparked worries

The information technology (IT) ministry has proposed amendments to social media intermediary guidelines to crack down on the rising menace of deepfakes. But creators and other industry stakeholders have called for alterations in the draft rules. Mint breaks down the proposals and their impact on users of artificial intelligence (AI) tools.

- BY SHOUVIK DAS

1 Will India's attempt to regulate AI really curb creators?

Creators say India's attempt to curb Al-manipulated content does not offer enough nuance. The draft asks any platform creating and distributing AI content to mandatorily use watermarks and invisible tags or 'metadata' to identify such content. What creators are worried about is the proposed disclaimer on 10% of the visible surface area'. This means for a text of 100 words, at least 10 must disclose that it was Al-generated. For an image, 10% of its resolution must feature a watermark disclosing that it was made with AI. Musicians and artists said the rule ignores how AI is used in conjunction with human skills. The rule may "destroy the creative effect", potentially affecting the adoption of AI for commercial purposes.

2 What about AI providers like OpenAI, Google, others?