TRAI Announces Statutory Body To Regulate AI Use Cases

Following repeated discussions on the needs to regulate artificial intelligence (AI), the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has released recommendations titled ‘Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data in Telecommunication Sector’. 

The advisory states that the regulatory framework should ensure that certain AI use cases that directly affect individuals are taken under a risk-based framework.

According to TRAI’s statement, to implement checks and restrictions on AI, an independent body will be constituted and designated as Artificial Intelligence and Data Authority of India (AIDAI).

In addition, a Multi Stakeholder Body (MSB) will also be constituted that will act as an advisory body to AIDAI. 

The primary role of AIDAI will be to frame regulations on various aspects of AI including responsible use, defining principles of responsible AI and their applicability on AI use cases based on risk assessment.

Elaborating on how AIDAI will function, TRAI stated, “AIDAI should evolve the framework based on its assessment, advice of proposed MSB, global best practices, and public consultation, ensuring that principles of responsible AI are made applicable at each phase of AI framework lifecycle like design, development, validation, deployment, monitoring and refinement.”

According to TRAI, AI/ML not only provide new opportunities but also bring certain risks. Low quality data, data biases, data security, data privacy, inaccurate or biased algorithms.

The Indian government certainly looks at all aspects of AI. Not limiting the policies to the negatives, the government is also promoting AI adoption across several areas actively. During the Union Budget 2023 speech, FM Nirmala Sitharman announced:

• Three CoEs for AI to be set up in top educational institutions
• Industry partnerships for R&D of scalable solutions in agriculture, health, and sustainable cities
• National Data Governance Policy to be set up to enable access to anonymised data.

This was welcomed by Professor Srivardhini K Jha, the chairperson at IIM-Bengaluru’s startup incubator NSRCEL. 

Recently, Wipro has also announced Wipro ai360, an AI-first innovation ecosystem that will integrate AI into every platform, tool, and solution used internally and offered to the clients. It also announced $1 Bn investment in improving AI capabilities over the next three years.