By Aarshiya Chowdhary
“Standards are taking centre stage in global governance discussions. When countries gather in New Delhi for WTSA-24, they will have an opportunity to foster digital inclusion and trust — values that are more important than ever to ensure that innovation in fields like artificial intelligence, the metaverse, and quantum information technologies helps us create the future we want."
- Doreen Bogdan-Martin, ITU Secretary-General
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no longer a Small Wonder!
From the first AI Beauty Pageant winner, Kenza Leyli, the first AI-driven Humanoid citizen, Sophia, the proliferation of AI-driven haptic devices like smartwatches to the increasing role of non-state actors like Taylor Swift's AI-synthesised deep fake in influencing electoral politics. Moreover, from the world’s first AI regulation by the European Union (EU), Open AI’s Strawberry model (sequel to ChatGPT), the adoption of the Global Digital Compact, the Nobel Prize 2024 (Physics), to the recent release of Ananya Pandey starring ‘CNTRL’,
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is intensely encapsulating human lives at light’s speed.
In light of this, the Information Telecommunication Union (ITU), the International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) are spearheading the first edition of the International AI Standards Summit at the World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly (WTSA-2024), being held from 14th October- 24th October 2024, in New Delhi, India. This year's World Standards Day theme is ‘Achieving Industry, Innovation, and Infrastructure through AI’, signifying the instrumental role of AI in transforming the digital space and ensuring an AI-driven sustainable future for all.
The Birth of AI: The Smart Machine
The term AI was coined by American computer scientist and mathematician John McCarthy after the creation of LISP (a computer programming language based on a recursive mathematical function applied to a data set) in 1958. This programming language became fundamental to the birth of AI by enabling machines to ‘learn’ and imparted machines with 'intelligence' over a relay of past 'learnings' or 'experiences’. Basically, an AI machine cannot be asked to 'Forget The Past!’
Further, Artificial Intelligence gained traction with Alan Turing’s famous ‘Imitation Game’, also known as the ‘Turing Test’. In his remarkable paper, ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence, 1950’, Turing demonstrated the ability of machines to ‘think’, based on repeated mimicking or copying of humans in experimental conditions. This became the foundation of what Zuboff (1988) calls 'smart machines', highlighting their socio-economic implications on the different equations of power, particularly with the expansion of Information Technology (IT).
The Need for Standardisation of the AI Landscape: The Pros and Cons of an AI-driven Society
AI has a plethora of benefits, for instance, automated mechanical or creative work with greater efficiency and productivity, personalised online user experience, disaster risk mitigation based on geoclimatic data of a region and security enhancement of digital borders by filtering illegal migrants and identifying UAVs in the age of grey warfare and more.
However, there are downsides. First, it perpetuates inherent racial bias and gender discrimination as an outcome of deep-rooted social stereotypes and prejudices that get embedded in the technical architecture of AI networks. Second, the occurrence of false positives in identification processes. Third, Gen AI technologies like ChatGPT create artworks based on originals that violate IPRs (Intellectual Property Rights). Fourth, AI-created deep fakes facilitate the spread of disinformation and synthetic data. Fifth, there is an increased threat to cyber-security via machine-based phishing, spoofing and DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) attacks. Sixth, training AI models have a heavy energy consumption footprint. Seventh, anonymity and pseudofication techniques with the support of AI augment cyber threats to a great extent. Eighth, AI can deeply erode an individual’s information privacy.
The challenges of an AI-based algorithmic society are exacerbated with the digital Brandt line, which undermines the efforts towards an equitable AI-driven society. The inequality in digital connectivity, access, and literacy results in the absence of fair representation of data from deprived regions, causing biases in AI training models. Also, the fragmentation of data protection laws, including the demand for data localisation by developing countries, inhibits data security and protection of digital rights, fuelling critical threats like profiling based on discrimination.
Standardising AI: The Global Efforts So Far
The first global-level move to advance a human-centric, trustworthy and responsible AI society saw the inception of the OECD-led Global Partnership for AI (GPAI) during the Covid (2020). This was followed by UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of AI (2021).
Of late, in March 2024, the UNGA adopted the landmark resolution on AI and emphasised two essential priorities: bridging the digital divide and ensuring equal protection of the rights of individuals in the offline-online world, particularly throughout the life cycle of the AI systems. Further, the European Union pioneered the first AI Regulation Act, adopting a risk-based approach with a critical focus on personal data protection and AI literacy of all stakeholders in the AI ecosystem. Following the release of the Act, the Council of Europe has adopted the first-ever legally-binding AI treaty to ensure global standardisation of AI with a strong intent to protect human rights, mitigate AI-based risks that undermine social cohesion and democracy, uphold the rule of law, and ensure a sustainable and inclusive AI-based global society.
India: Voice of the Global South in the AI Landscape
Notably, alongside the WTSA-2024, the world’s first International AI Standards Summit is being held in New Delhi, India, from the 14th-18th of October 2024. It is important to note that such an event is taking place in the Indo-Pacific for the first time. This reflects the Global South's growing multistakeholdership in setting of the global AI-standard regime and India's growing leadership role as the representative of the Global South in the backdrop of current domination of Global North in AI landscape.
Today, the Indo-Pacific construct is emerging as the Geotech heartland of the digital international system as a consequence of accelerating digital development. Here, India is working towards expanding its foreign policy interests as well as mainstreaming the goals and aspirations of the Global South:
a) India has strategically opted out of the ‘Trade pillar’ of the US-led IPEF, where digital trade fuelled by personal data, the new oil of the twenty-first century, is a crucial component.
b) India hosted the third Voice of the Global South Summit under the theme ‘An Empowered Global South for a Sustainable Future', with technology, digital transformation, IT, innovation and governance as key focus areas.
c) India is a founding member of the OECD-led GPAI (Global Partnership Alliance for Artificial Intelligence), 2020, an initiative to enhance multi-stakeholder cooperation in global governance on AI rooted in three critical priorities- safe, secure and trustworthy AI. This pins India's proactive role in fostering cooperation in AI governance. At the GPAI 2024, the New Delhi declaration called for collaborative efforts to pursue 'AI for the good of all’.
d) India participated in the Outreach session on AI at the G7 Summit, pushing its values of 'AI for All'. Also, it is a member of the Quad Standards Sub-Group on AI (2024) that aims to promote international cooperation and give impetus to coherent global AI governance through technical interoperability. Therefore, India has the potential of being a critical bridge between the West and the Global South in the digital domain.
e) India is positioned 39th on the WIPO’s Global Innovation Index. It occupies the first position amongst lower middle-income economies. It has continued to emerge as an innovation outperformer for the 14th year in a row. Also, it is the world's third-largest start-up economy, with most start-ups being tech-led. Also, India ranks 10th in private investment in AI development.
f) India’s global success in digital public infrastructure (DPIs), for example with the adoption of India’s UPI in Bhutan, Singapore and France, is a significant achievement and highlights its huge potential to be the backbone of a global AI ecosystem that is transparent, inclusive, diverse, accountable, open for cooperation, and a standards-based sustainable human-centric AI future.
g) India is an emerging economy with an expanding data pool of 120 crore mobile phone users and 95 crore internet users. A wide data pool paves its way to be a notable actor from the Global South in the AI regulatory landscape.
To conclude, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming and reconceptualising many aspects of human lives. Technology, particularly emerging technologies like AI, is instrumental in profoundly impacting the international world order. The digital divide in the AI landscape compels the developing world to be a dormant actor in the global governance of critical issues like AI. However, in recent times, amid the ongoing Sino-US technology rivalry, emerging economies like India from the Global South have a unique position. They are making headways to promote an ethical, inclusive, diverse and sustainable AI future. The World Standards Summit 2024, including the first AI international standards summit, is an apt moment to ensure an 'AI for Good for All' and achieve the essence of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 2030).
This is an Original Contribution to the SIS Blog.
Aarshiya Chowdhary is a Doctoral Candidate at the Centre for European Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India, with her focus of research work on Data Protection, Information Privacy, Digital Rights and Global Regulation of Technology.