Google AI’s answer on whether Modi is ‘fascist’ sparks outrage in India, calls for tough laws
- The Gemini tool’s response to the question ‘Is Modi a fascist?’ was slammed as ‘biased’
- India’s IT minister says the incident has violated the law while an academic has called for ‘heavy intervention’ by New Delhi
The controversy was sparked by a viral post on X, formerly known as Twitter, by journalist Arnab Ray, who posted screenshots of the chatbot’s response to “Is Modi a fascist?” Gemini replied that Modi was “accused of implementing policies some experts have characterised as fascist”.
A Google spokesperson said in a Hindu Businessline report on Saturday, “We’ve worked quickly to address this issue.
“Gemini is built as a creativity and productivity tool and may not always be reliable, especially when it comes to responding to some prompts about current events, political topics, or evolving news. This is something that we’re constantly working on improving.”
“These are direct violations of Rule 3(1)(b) of Intermediary Rules (IT rules) of the IT Act and violations of several provisions of the Criminal Code,” he wrote on social media.
The minister’s remark prompted calls for India to tighten its rules and regulations to prevent a recurrence of such incidents.
“Heavy intervention is needed by the ministry. Must be told in plain words that access to the Indian market is based on rule of law. Follow the rules or ship out,” Suchit Ahuja, an assistant professor at Concordia University, wrote in response to Chandrasekhar’s report on LinkedIn.
Internet shutdowns in India spark fears of authoritarianism before election
“We do not want an electronic version of the East India Company (EIC) in the 21st century.”
He was referring to the dominant trading company set up by the British Empire to trade popular items such as cotton, silk, tea and opium from its base in India between 1785 and 1858.
To many people in India, the EIC had exploited the riches and labour of the subcontinent, ruined its economy through heavy taxation and used armed force to suppress Indian states.
A responsible approach to AI is needed to ensure human biases are not coded into the training of the algorithms, otherwise, they would become more blatant in responses generated by the technology, Ahuja said.
“The fact that such a high-profile leader of a democratic country, who enjoys a 77 per cent approval rating – the highest globally, is being called a fascist in an AI response, is deeply concerning. This reflects poorly on the process of training and design of the AI algorithms,” he added.
06:57
Inauguration of India’s Ayodhya temple tipped to whip up Hindu nationalism ahead of elections
India’s technology laws
India introduced stringent new rules to govern social media firms a few years ago under its Information Technology Rules that put platforms such as X and Facebook under greater scrutiny.
Social media companies with more than 5 million users are required to appoint tech compliance officers.
The main role of these officers is to remove content deemed “objectionable” by law enforcement agencies. Companies can challenge these requests in court. Under the law, platforms need to remove sexual content within 24 hours, while they have 15 days to do so for non-sexual offensive content.
But often companies have only complied with the rules half-heartedly so far and the legal system needs an overhaul in this area, lawyers say.
India’s tech world faces ‘wake-up call’ as big names Paytm, Byju’s falter
Siddharth Mahajan, a partner at Athena Legal, a New Delhi law firm, said that guidelines for intermediaries under India’s Information Technology Act require them to remove miscommunication or misleading information even if it is AI-generated.
“Otherwise their intermediary status may be revoked,” he said.
The Indian government says it wants a light touch on regulation on AI “so that innovation is not stifled” but Mahajan said that authorities can take action against Google on the grounds of spreading false information.
Satya Gupta, President of VLSI Society and a veteran of India’s electronics and digital industry, said that generative AI is not meant to give factual information but if the output of such a tool is used incorrectly, it becomes the relevant company’s responsibility.
02:31
‘What choice do I have?’: centenarian farmer joins India protests demanding fair crop prices
‘Broad approach needed’
Technology experts said it would be tough for the government to tackle issues involving AI only by updating the law.
“We have so many laws in India but how many are implemented? Since AI is an emerging technology, you need to keep evolving. [But] technology changes by the hour and laws are not so easy to change,” said Sanjay Kaushik, managing director of security and risk management consultancy Netrika Consulting India Private Ltd.
Kaushik said that AI technology relies on past experiences or data that has been fed to pick out answers to questions. “If somebody in the US feeds the wrong data, then it will provide the answers accordingly,” he said.
“It is very difficult to make it independent and unbiased until you can put in algorithms that are totally independent,” he said, adding that Indian authorities can emulate their counterparts in the US and Europe by imposing heavy penalties as a deterrent.
China became the first country last August to introduce a law targeting generative AI – one of several regulations it had passed to curb the spread of different forms of harmful AI.
India’s EV makers cut prices, boost demand ahead of Tesla’s market entry
In most countries, however, such regulations have not been introduced or are in the pipeline.
The Indian government has proposed to pass legislation called the Digital India Act, which would replace the existing Information Technology Act. But discussions over the matter are still in their early stage and it is unclear what the Act would cover.
Analysts say that regulations targeting the harmful side of AI have to be broad in scope as the technology could have a much bigger impact than social media or even the internet.
“India already has laws about the hosting of data, perhaps this is an opportune moment to also devise certain AI-focused laws that provide the necessary deterrents for these types of issues from propagating,” Ahuja said.
The Indian government could provide incentives to develop local-specific AI solutions as these could serve as a “mitigation mechanism” and compete with those from the international tech giants, he said.
