'Serious threat to democracy': India to soon introduce regulations to curb deepfake menace

A day after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke on AI risks at the G20 Virtual Summit, the Indian government announced that it is set to soon come up with regulations to tackle the deepfake concerns, including holding social media platforms and content creators responsible for the menace.

The decision to get the draft regulations ready as soon as possible came after Indian IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw chaired a meeting with stakeholders such as social media companies and firmsworking on AI tools.

As per a release by the government following the meet, an agreement was made "that government, academia, social media companies and [industry body] NASSCOM will jointly work towards responding to deepfake."

A consensus was also reached to work on four pointers within next 10 days.It included the detection of deepfake content, prevention of its propagation, grievance redressal mechanism, andawareness creation on the issue.

Follow-up meet next week

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology will start making assessments and drafting regulations on deepfake.

To further tighten the noose on deepfake misuse, another meeting with relevant stakeholders is scheduled for December first week.

It will be a follow-up meeting to finalise the four-pillared structure.

To convey the gravity of the potential Deepfake menace, the release called it a "serious threat to democracy and social institutions across the world."

PM Modi at the G20 Virtual Summit had said, "Deepfake is a big concern. AI has to be safe for the public."

Many nations are taking steps to address the known and unknown risks of AI technology.

India, along with countries like the United Kingdom, United States, Australia, and China, signed the so-called Bletchley Declaration on the first day of the AI Safety Summit hosted by the UK government. The nations agreed to work hand in hand on AI safety research.

(With inputs from agencies)