Regulating AI: India's Push for Mandatory Labelling of Synthetic Media
UPSC Relevance
Prelims: Science and Technology (Artificial Intelligence - AI, Deepfakes); Indian Polity and Governance (IT Act 2000, IT Rules 2021, Subordinate Legislation).
Mains:
General Studies Paper 2 (Polity & Governance): "Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation"; "Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability".
General Studies Paper 3 (S&T, Security): "Awareness in the fields of IT, Computers"; "Role of media and social networking sites in internal security challenges"; "Basics of cyber security".
General Studies Paper 4 (Ethics): Ethics and Human Interface (related to truth, trust, and deception).
Key Highlights from the News
The Central Government has mandated that Artificial Intelligence (AI)-generated fake content (including deepfakes) on social media platforms must be mandatorily labelled.
This is being implemented by amending the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
The main objective is to prevent election manipulation, the spread of disinformation, and character assassination.
Companies like Meta and industry groups like the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) support the concept of "digital provenance," which clarifies the origin of content.
The article criticizes bringing about such an important change through subordinate legislation (delegated legislation) without direct parliamentary approval.
Since technology is changing rapidly, the article also demands that the government be prepared for agile action to update regulations accordingly.
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