Tech Explained: Tech an enabler, future success will rely on strong base of trust: Nasscom VP on AI governance in Simple Terms

India – with its large, diverse population – is adopting a calibrated approach on AI governance to tackle deepfakes, digital frauds and other user harms, Nasscom Vice President of Public Policy, Ashish Aggarwal has said stressing that trust will form the bedrock of future success for the tech industry.

Terming technology as a great enabler, Aggarwal told PTI that AI itself can be leveraged and deployed to minimise and prevent much of the harms generated by its use. Instead of regulations reacting to users’ harms, there is an increasing emphasis now on setting ‘technology-led guardrails‘, he noted.

“We are a country of 1.4 plus billion people and we have a very diverse, heterogeneous population. So obviously we need to be very careful and we need to make sure that the citizens are not harmed, be it deep fakes and other harms which are really escalating and we see more of that around financial frauds, digital arrest.

“So I think it is very important that a lot of these are addressed well and it will be important even from an industry point of view because any future success has to sit on a strong base of trust,” he said.

Aggarwal noted the recent developments, including the proposed AI framework of the IT Ministry and RBI’s report on a comprehensive approach to drive AI adoption, and praised what he described as a “whole of government” approach on AI governance.

“Government is doing that, and there is a lot of consultation and I think a more fundamental thing is that instead of regulations chasing harms, what we are seeing evolve is an approach where we can set technology-led guardrails.