Artificial Intelligence: Who Will Bell The Cat

Renowned American researcher Raymond Kurzweil had said at the beginning of this century that technology is not limited to making tools, it is a process that gives birth to more powerful technology than before.

He had said that the speed of development of technology will at least double in a decade. The position that technology has reached today proves that he was not wrong.

But with the rapid development of technology, the fear of it going out of control has also spread equally fast. The fear of an unknown future induced by technology and discussion on it is nothing new among scientists and experts.

Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai had said last week that it is very important to be cautious about Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Last week, one of his articles was published in the Financial Times, in which he said, “There is no doubt that it is necessary to make rules regarding Artificial Intelligence. We can keep working on new technology. But market systems should not have free hand to use it in any way.”

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Warnings have been given many times regarding AI

This is not the first time that Sundar Pichai has warned the world about the dangers of Artificial Intelligence, nor is he the first expert to do so.

While addressing the employees of the company in the year 2018, he had said, “No other invention will have as much impact on the world as Artificial Intelligence.”

He said, “The most important thing that humans are working on today is artificial intelligence, perhaps as important as fire and electricity. But it can also kill humans. We have learned to control fire but we are also grappling with its dangers. Those working on artificial intelligence have to understand that this is also one such technology, which has to be worked on with full responsibility.”

In 2017, Tesla and SpaceX owner Elon Musk said, “If you are not worried about artificial intelligence, then you should be worried. It is more dangerous than North Korea.”

The picture that Elon Musk tweeted on social media read, “In the end, machines will win.”

Musk appealed to the leaders to make rules to control artificial intelligence before it is too late.

Stephen Hawking, the famous physicist who explained the theory of black holes and the Big Bang to the world, said in 2017 that “I believe that artificial intelligence can be used for the betterment of humanity, but humans will have to find some way to control it.”

He called its development the creation of powerful machines and warned about their becoming more powerful and said, “If we are not able to prepare ourselves for its dangers, then this can cause the greatest harm to human civilization.”

Oren Etzoni of the Allen Institute of Artificial Intelligence said in 2017 that even though artificial intelligence is useful, it needs to be controlled to some extent.

Why is there concern about AI?

Artificial Intelligence means giving machines the ability to think, act and take decisions like humans.

Voice assistants like Siri and Alexa, self-driving technology in cars like Tesla, predictive technology of Amazon and Netflix that serves programs according to the interests of consumers or Nest’s technology that can track your habits – these are some examples of the use of artificial intelligence.

But recently, the special reason for which artificial intelligence has been in the news is facial recognition technology.

Indian police use a facial recognition app called Trinetra, which can be used to find out whether a criminal has a previous criminal record by matching his picture with his name.

In recent years, police have used automated facial recognition systems in crowded places on Republic Day and Independence Day. According to a report, this technology was used in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s rally held at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi on 22 December 2019.

The Indian government is considering this technology important for modernization of the police force and identification of criminals.

While this discussion was gaining momentum in the media, a report by Kashmir Hill was published in the New York Times. This report was about a company named Clearview AI, which uses pictures of people posted on thousands of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube to recognize faces.

Law enforcement agencies are interested in this software and according to a report, about 600 agencies in the US are using it. The company’s founder Ho Ton-That says, “There are millions of websites on the Internet, which we use to make our database bigger.”

Why is facial recognition a matter of concern?

The basis of facial recognition technology is to scan millions of faces or their photographs to identify one face. This means violating the privacy of millions of people to identify one person.

So what will happen to the privacy of those millions of people whose photographs or faces are being scanned by companies and governments without their permission? Is there any law for them?

Viraag Gupta, a well-known advocate and cyber expert in the Supreme Court, says that there is currently no direct law in India regarding this.

He explains, “There is a constant struggle between law and technology. While technology moves forward at a fast pace, law making has its own pace, it moves at a slow pace.” “The question is that if people are not aware of or do not understand the dangers involved and if there is no legal obligation to inform people about these dangers, then companies can take advantage of this and what is happening needs to be seen in this light.”

Rizwan Sheikh, an ethical hacker working on facial recognition technology, believes that the security and use of a large amount of data collected under this technology is a matter of great concern.

However, he says, “Major crimes can be prevented in time by using this data.”

He says that to deal with this, the government needs to think and make rules at many levels.

He says, “First, is the data kept with a private company or the government and for this, servers within the country or outside the country are used. Second, if a private company has the data, how does it use the data? Third, is the data completely encrypted and fourth and last, what are the necessary arrangements to deal with hacking attempts?”

Virag Gupta also agrees that it is futile to expect this work from the common man, the effort for this will have to be made by the government.

He says, “Companies write big terms of agreement in small letters, which the user of the app or software agrees to without reading. Does anyone audit them? It would be an exaggeration to expect the common man to deal with these tactics. Neither is he capable of doing this, nor does he have the resources, nor does he have any legal system for this.”

“To deal with such large-scale privacy violations, many laws will have to be resorted to. Firstly, it has to be understood that for this, the appropriate points of the Information Technology Act will have to be strengthened further. Secondly, it has to be seen that if information has been collected, then how to keep it safe. Thirdly, it has to be understood that how do the companies use the data they collect for commercial purposes, the government should make a system of regulation for them regarding this.”

What is the system in India?

Rizwan Sheikh says, “Indian agency CERT India works to monitor issues like data usage. It needs to make necessary guidelines that talk about keeping the data safe and allowing the government to access it only when needed.”

But a major concern is that companies work internationally and in such a situation they have the challenge of complying with the laws of every country and such problems can arise.

Rizwan Sheikh says, “Visa or passport is not required to download software or apps. You can download an app from a German server to your phone in India. This is a big challenge for cyber law and technology and many companies and people take advantage of this loophole.

A ray of hope

Udbhav Tiwari, Public Policy Advisor at Mozilla Company, says “In 2019, San Francisco banned the use of facial recognition by government agencies. But such examples are still rare.”

He says, “The European Union is considering the dangers of artificial intelligence and its regulation.”

This month, a white paper related to this was leaked, according to which the Union may take three to five years to fully consider its advantages and disadvantages, during which the use of facial recognition technology in public places can be banned.

This is also being considered in India. But there is currently no clarity on what will be said about facial recognition in the upcoming Data Protection Bill. This bill was introduced in Parliament in December last year. At that time, experts had expressed concern that government agencies could get exemption to use it by arguing national security.

Udbhav Tiwari says that “In most countries, government agencies are given such exemption. But it is important that there should be rules for the use of data for government agencies as well.”

Virag Gupta says that “In India, the government neither shows seriousness nor the will to do so. There are many challenges in creating a regulatory system for this. Digital India has arrived but there is no proper legal system for its different types of use.”

He says that, “It does not seem that governments will be able to regulate it easily. Until its economic and social side effects affect more countries, a major accident occurs or a major international understanding is formed, it does not seem that anything will happen about it.”

“Just like the countries of the world had to unite over the use of nuclear bombs, similarly when it is understood that this is a big loss for humanity, efforts will be made to regulate it as well.”

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