The Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI), an alliance of 29 member countries, has unanimously adopted the New Delhi declaration underscoring the need to mitigate risks arising from the development and deployment of AI systems, and promoting equitable access to critical resources for AI innovation including computing and high quality diverse datasets.
While acknowledging the rapid pace of improvement in advanced AI systems and their potential to generate economic growth, the declaration flagged concerns emanating from such systems including misinformation, unemployment, lack of transparency and fairness, protection of intellectual property and personal data, and threats to human rights and democratic values.
“We support the intention of India, as Lead Chair for 2024, in its endeavour to promote collaborative AI for global partnership among GPAI members by supporting projects aimed at promoting equitable access to critical resources for AI research and innovation, such as AI computing, high quality diverse datasets, algorithms, software, testbeds, and other AI-relevant resources in compliance with applicable intellectual property protections and data protection legislations,” the declaration said.
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This is a significant win for India, which has batted for a collaborative approach towards building AI systems as it looks to push its model of digital public infrastructure (DPI) across the world. Besides, access to computing capabilities from member nations will also boost New Delhi’s plans of building a sovereign AI system, something it has outlined as crucial for countering dominance from a handful of foreign companies in the space.
Addressing a press briefing, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar said that the declaration seeks to ensure that AI and its benefits are inclusive and available to all the countries of the world, including the Global South. The declaration was adopted following a five hour ministerial deliberation.
The declaration also said that a global framework on AI should be rooted in democratic values and human rights, safeguarding dignity and well-being, ensuring personal data protection, protection of applicable intellectual property rights, privacy, and security, fostering innovation, and promoting, trustworthy, responsible, sustainable and human-centred use of AI.
The GPAI is an attempt, largely led by the democratic world, to adopt a global risk-based approach to AI. It includes countries like India, the United States, the UK, France, Japan, and Canada among others. China, a major tech superpower, is not part of the multilateral grouping.
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This was also the first time the group’s members were meeting after generative AI platforms like ChatGPT and Google Bard burst into the scene, propelling conversations around AI into the mainstream. To that end, the declaration notes that the GPAI members will play a “pivotal” role in addressing contemporary AI issues, including generative AI, “through applied AI projects aimed at addressing societal problems and global challenges, maximising the benefits and mitigating associated risks”.
GPAI members also agreed to support AI innovation in the agriculture sector as a new “thematic priority”. India was pushing for the inclusion of agriculture as a priority sector in AI innovation, IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had earlier said.
“We acknowledge the importance of promoting the development of and access to risk-proportionate trustworthy AI applications for ensuring sustainable food production systems and implementing resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, help regenerate ecosystems, strengthen capacity for mitigation and adaptation to climate change, extreme weather, drought, flooding and other disasters, and that progressively improve land and soil quality, as well as promote inclusion and empowerment of workers in the agricultural supply chain,” the declaration said.
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The declaration also said that the GPAI will pursue a diverse membership, with a particular focus on low and middle-income countries to ensure a broad range of expertise, national and regional views and experiences based on our shared values. Senegal, a current member of the grouping, was elevated to the steering committee of the GPAI.