Recognising the fast-paced nature of the technological and regulatory developments impacting Generative AI (GenAI) practice, nasscom today released a set of guidelines that will be instrumental in defining frameworks and act as common standards and protocols for researching, developing, and using GenAI responsibly in India. The draft guidelines are the result of consultations with the technology industry, a multi-disciplinary group of AI experts, researchers, and practitioners, with representations from academia, and civil society.
Nasscom has been actively prioritizing importance of responsible AI through its its Responsible AI Resource Kit and advocacy efforts. The guidelines on GenAI are intended to achieve a robust, common understanding of normative obligations amongst stakeholders to help them improve their net social impact with GenAI and to foster trust in the adoption of GenAI technologies across industries. Moving forward, the focus will be on promoting awareness about the adoption of these guidelines, developing specific guidance for different use cases, and enhancing the existing Responsible AI Resource Kit to facilitate adoption of responsible AI.
The guidelines highlight certain obligations for researchers, developers, and users with emphasis on demonstrating reasonable caution and foresight by conducting comprehensive risk assessments and maintaining internal oversight throughout the entire lifecycle of a GenAI solution. Further, transparency and accountability are promoted through public disclosures of data and algorithm sources used for modelling and other technical, non-proprietary details about the solution’s development process, capabilities, and limitations. Reliability, safety, and responsible use are ought to be ensured with adherence to established privacy-preserving norms and standards, safety testing of GenAI models in regulated environments, and strict adherence to data protection and intellectual property rules during the model training process.
The complete list of guidelines can be found on the below link: https://nasscom.in/ai/responsibleai/images/GenAI-Guidelines-June2023.pdf
Alkesh Kumar Sharma, Secretary, Electronics & Information Technology said “I would like to congratulate Nasscom and the technology industry for coming together proactively and building the guidelines for responsible use of Generative AI. The current pace of innovation in AI tools and platforms has created enormous opportunities and risks that every country is looking at. Self-governance is a useful tool to fill the gap between innovation and regulation and I would urge the technology industry to lead by example by taking these guidelines to the next step of adoption and building practices and tools that can be used across all sectors.”
Anant Maheshwari, Chairperson, Nasscom, President, Microsoft India said, “In the era of AI, a robust governance framework will provide the necessary structure and guidelines to ensure the smooth development and implementation of GenAI, fostering trust, accountability, and ethical decision-making. The guidelines would help the ecosystem unleash the true potential of AI, creating a future that harmoniously blends human ingenuity with technological advancement.”
Srikanth Velamakanni, Chair, nasscom AI Advisory Group, Group CEO, Fractal AI said, “Generative AI is a paradigm shift in AI capability. We believe that this intelligence will be embedded as a foundational layer across every product, service, or process and open up a whole new world of use cases. For India, this represents an opportunity to solve complex challenges at scale, augment productivity, boost GDP and become a meaningful global AI player. However, it is equally important that this is done responsibly evaluating all potential risks and harms. nasscom has been at the forefront of advocacy on this important issue and the responsible AI guidelines on Generative built collaboratively across industry details the key obligations and principles that can help India build its differentiated leadership”.
Rajesh Nambiar, Vice Chairperson, Nasscom, Chairman, Cognizant India said, “Generative AI presents immense opportunities for India to enable inclusion at scale and enhance productivity of the workforce. It is also key that potential risks are mitigated proactively and the guidelines put together by nasscom in collaboration with the industry provides the framework for stakeholders to build and enhance their own practices and risk frameworks. Delighted to collaborate with the industry on this very important area that is going to be a gamechanger for all!”
Debjani Ghosh, President, Nasscom said, “The guidelines by nasscom is a first-of-its-kind initiative in the world that involves the industry to collaboratively create a self governance framework that benefit all stakeholders. Despite being fierce competitors, I am really proud of how the nasscom members came together to create this framework. This is tremendously unique to India and is a proactive step towards building a transparent and robust roadmap for responsible build and use of AI. We will continue to work with our members to facilitate the sharing of best practices and learning to accelerate the journey”.
To keep up with the rapid advancements in generative AI and its impact on society, nasscom is collaborating with industry through an Advisory Group. This group amongst other priorities will work together to study and create guidelines, frameworks and tools that reflect the India imperatives. These guidelines will be shared with all parties involved in the development and use of generative AI, ensuring they have a roadmap for responsible participation in this evolving field.