Microsoft announces a blueprint for India on AI governance

Tech giant Microsoft has unveiled a blueprint for India on artificial intelligence (AI) governance, and proposed a regulatory architecture to oversee safety protocols, in its whitepaper titled “Governing AI: A Blueprint for India”. The company has advised the government to classify high-risk AI systems and ensure that operators test and monitor these systems for the control of infrastructure. 

This comes amid Microsoft raising its stakes in its artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT. 

The AI regulatory framework includes regulations prescribing safety and security requirements, license deployment for permitted uses in a licensed Al data centre with post-deployment safety and security monitoring and protection. The recommendations also suggest for developing new laws and regulations for highly capable AI foundation models such as OpenAI’s GPT and Pathways Language Model (PaLM) from Google, while also calling for rules that may require system developers to ensure that safety brakes are built by design. 

The tech giant has integrated the AI technology with its key solutions like the Bing search engine, sales and marketing software, GitHub coding tools, Microsoft 365 productivity bundle and Azure cloud. It has also partnered with OpenAI through a reported $10 billion investment to accelerate AI breakthroughs. 

“India is experiencing a significant technological transformation that presents a tremendous opportunity to leverage innovation for economic growth. This paper offers some of our ideas and suggestions as a company, placed in the Indian context,” says Brad Smith, vice chair and president of Microsoft in the foreword to the paper. 

Microsoft has offered to share its “specialised knowledge” about advanced AI models to help the government define the regulatory threshold.