NEW DELHI, Aug 13: The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Centre and other authorities to consider suggestions made by a petitioner on framing binding guidelines for ethics, transparency and accountability in the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for 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.
At the outset, the bench asked the petitioner, “Tell us what can we do?”
Goswami said he was pressing a prayer seeking directions to the Centre to disclose, through an affidavit, details of all existing and proposed high-risk AI systems being used by government ministries and agencies for welfare delivery, policing, surveillance and content regulation.
The bench suggested that he submit his writ petition as a representation to the authorities.
“Send your writ petition as a representation,” the bench said, observing that the petition was comprehensive.
The court said the matter involved highly technical issues and fell largely within the policy domain. “We are not the experts. It is a highly technical issue and it is in policy domain,” the bench observed.
The court noted that Goswami had submitted a representation to the government in February this year on the issue.
While disposing of the petition at this stage without expressing any opinion on its merits, the bench directed the authorities to consider the suggestions and take appropriate measures. It also granted the petitioner liberty to supplement his representation.
In his PIL, Goswami sought the constitution of a high-powered expert committee to frame binding guidelines covering AI ethics, mandatory algorithmic impact assessments, bias audits and transparency in AI-based surveillance and content moderation.
The plea also sought safeguards including human oversight for all high-risk government AI systems and measures for protecting data.
Among other demands, the petitioner sought directions for conducting and making public comprehensive algorithmic impact assessments and independent bias audits of AI systems used in welfare allocation, predictive policing, facial recognition and content moderation.
He also sought disclosure of a complete inventory of such AI systems and urged the Centre to enact comprehensive legislation regulating the development and deployment of AI by the State.
