Digital Jurisprudence in India’s AI Era

Context

The rapid advancements in Generative AI (GAI) have ushered in a new era of digital jurisprudence in India. As these transformative technologies continue to reshape society, existing legal frameworks and judicial precedents face unprecedented challenges in effectively governing this evolving landscape.

The Rise of Generative AI

• Generative AI is capable of producing new data like text, images, and code, driven by advancements in Large Language Models. 
• These systems are known for their ability to create human-like content accurately and efficiently. 
• The potential impact of Generative AI is significant, with predictions suggesting that Large Language Models alone could add trillions of dollars to the global economy each year. 
• Its uses are varied, including generating revenue, creating content, summarizing data, and aiding in coding tasks.

Challenges to Existing Legal Frameworks

The rise of General Artificial Intelligence presents new challenges for current legal systems and court rulings that were established before the age of AI. The legal guidelines for GAI are unclear and require a thorough review of existing digital laws to address the specific issues raised by these technologies.

Copyright Conundrum

• The issue of ownership and copyright of content generated by GAI is a significant concern. In the United States, copyright protection is only granted to works created by humans, but India has a different approach, giving joint authorship to AI-generated works. 
• This raises important questions about determining authorship and addressing potential copyright infringement problems.

Privacy and Digital Rights

• The groundbreaking K.S. Puttaswamy ruling in 2017 set the stage for the development of privacy laws in India, culminating in the passage of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act of 2023 (DPDP). 
• Nevertheless, the emergence of GAI introduces a fresh challenge, as it has the capacity to assimilate and preserve personal data embedded within its learning algorithms. Striking a delicate balance between the game-changing capabilities of AI and the protection of individual privacy rights continues to be a pressing issue.

Liability and Safe Harbour

• The use of safe harbour provisions for GAI tools is also quite questionable. Due to the grey area found between these tools being categorized as an intermediary, conduit, and an active creator of content, courts have had a hard time determining the party at fault especially in cases of user reposts. 
• The line between the two, the user-generated content and the platform’s own content falls rather blurred when it comes to the question of liability fixation.

Adapting to the AI Era

• Thus, in the process of India recognizing and accepting the emergence of AI in financial structures, it is necessary to align legal regulation with advanced technologies. 
• It can be seen that the lawmakers, the scientific community, and industry players can only work together to find what exactly would be the right kind of balance between innovation on one hand and legal protection on the other hand.

Strengthening Privacy Safeguards

• The principalities of the DPDP Act, including the ‘right to delete’ and/or the ‘right to be forgotten’ should take into account the paradigms of GAI. 
• The ability to empower the individual to have some measure of control over his or her data when it has been incorporated into these models is something the field struggles to address and, ultimately, solve.

Clarifying Liability Frameworks

The policymakers ought to define the nature of GAI tools as well as its associated risks. There is a need for clear demarcation between CU and CPG, and the nature and extent of safe harbour protection especially in the context of the E-Commerce directive’s provisional directive.

Conclusion

It is therefore necessary to redesign a new digital jurisprudence for India while entering this age of Artificial Intelligence because of the challenges presented by Generative AI. The features such as good governance, transparency, and Code of ethics can help apply the value of GAI without creating preys for some dishonest stakeholders.

The phenomenon of digital jurisprudence has to be responsive for it to implement breakthrough innovations in the field of AI while not overlooking legal concerns. Legal infrastructure is a key requirement for India’s future digitalisation to be correctly aligned with the principles of justice and hold its outcome accountable.

Source: The Hindu

UPSC Mains Practice Question

Q. Discuss the implications of advancing artificial intelligence on the legal framework in India. How can digital jurisprudence adapt to ensure effective regulation and protection of rights in an AI-driven society?

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