Supreme Court asks Govt to consider AI ethics guidelines

The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Centre and others to consider suggestions given by a petitioner on framing binding guidelines on ethics and transparency in AI-based surveillance and content moderation.

A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana was hearing a petition filed by advocate Narendra Kumar Goswami.

“Tell us what can we do,” the bench told the petitioner at the outset.

Goswami said he was pressing one of the prayers made in the petition, which sought a direction to the Centre to file an affidavit disclosing all existing and proposed high-risk Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems used by the ministries or agencies in welfare, policing, surveillance and content regulation.

“Send your writ petition as a representation,” the bench said, adding that it was a comprehensive petition. “We are not the experts. It is a highly technical issue and it is in policy domain,” the bench said.

It observed that the issues raised in the petition needs formulation of appropriate policy or regulation.

The bench noted the petitioner had, in February this year, submitted a representation to the Government on the issue. While disposing of the petition at this stage without expressing any opinion on the merits, the bench asked the authorities to consider the suggestions for taking appropriate measures.

It said the petitioner is at liberty to supplement the representation. In his PIL, Goswami has sought a direction to the Centre to constitute a high-powered expert committee to frame “binding guidelines on AI ethics, mandatory algorithmic impact assessments and bias audits, transparency in AI-based surveillance and content moderation, human-in-the-loop oversight for all high-risk Governmental AI systems, and data protection safeguards...”

The plea sought a direction to the Centre and others to conduct and make public within six weeks a comprehensive algorithmic impact assessment and independent bias audit of all existing AI systems deployed in welfare allocation, predictive policing, facial recognition and content moderation, and to disclose the complete inventory of such systems.

Besides other prayers, it also sought a direction to the Centre to take steps to enact a comprehensive parliamentary legislation regulating the development and deployment of AI by the State, consistent with the guidelines framed by the apex court.