The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Thursday released recommendations on “Leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data in Telecommunication Sector”. The recommendations have suggested an urgent need to adopt a regulatory framework. 

 Explaining the background of the recommendations, it said, “The emerging technologies of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Big Data (BD) are transforming the world at an unprecedented pace. The future will likely see large parts of our lives influenced by AI technology. With recent advances in AI, machines are gaining the ability to learn and make decisions in ways that will enable them to perform tasks previously thought to rely on human experience, creativity, and ingenuity.” 

 According to the framework, for ensuring the development of responsible Artificial Intelligence (AI) in India, there is an urgent need to adopt a regulatory framework by the Government that should be applicable across sectors. The regulatory framework should ensure that specific AI use cases are regulated on a risk-based framework where high-risk use cases directly impacting humans are regulated through legally binding obligations. 

The recommendations added that broad tenets of the suggested regulatory framework should comprise an independent statutory authority, a Multi-Stakeholder Body (MSB) that will act as an advisory body to the proposed statutory authority, and Categorizations of the AI use cases based on their risk and regulating them according to broad principles of Responsible AI. 

The AIDAI should frame regulations on various aspects of AI, including its responsible use. Defining principles of responsible AI and their applicability to AI use cases based on risk assessment. AIDAI should evolve the framework based on its assessment, advice of proposed MSB, global best practices, and public consultation. 

The body should also ensure that responsible AI principles are applicable at each phase of the AI framework lifecycle. They should develop a model Ai Governance Framework to guide organizations on responsibly deploying AI. 

The body will also have a recommendatory functions such as facilitating the adoption of future technologies, monitoring and making recommendations on the enforcement framework of AI applications, coordinating with technical standard-setting bodies of Government, capacity building and infrastructure requirements, assessing the data digitization requirement, defining the process framework for the use of AI and related technology in data processing, putting in place an overarching framework for ethical use of data etc. 

 The other functions of the body will be to set up regulatory sandboxes for testing AI-based solutions collaborating with standard-setting bodies of various sectors, collaborating with international regulators, providing a platform for industry and academic collaboration, and creating awareness of the responsible use of AI.