With the announcement of the Stargate project by POTUS, the governance and technology landscape will have to reorient itself. Undoubtedly, a robust IT framework is inevitable to cater to the fast-pervading role of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). The automation of processes and their learning acumen using machine learning has already started showing impact through generative AI – large language models. The growing use of tools like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, etc. may bring redundancy of critical thinking and diminish cognitive skills to a certain extent, nevertheless the automated machine outputs help those lacking in particular competencies. Looking at the achieved levels of AI technologies and applications, the capabilities of training tools for imitating real individuals and exhibiting behavior like living ones are bound to grow further.
Indisputably, the growth of technology cannot be put on hold and competencies of technical workforce will persevere to automate and create systems with ever-increasing functionalities. But the reiteration of India’s stand during the G20 presidency by the Prime Minister of India in the AI Action Summit – 2025 in France ‘to build consensus on harnessing AI responsibly, for good, and for all’ while informing that India leads in AI adoption, and techno-legal solutions on data privacy, has set the tone for ethics in AI technology advancements. His asseveration that ‘AI will shape the course of humanity’ along with ‘no one holds the key to our collective future and shared destiny other than us humans’ has articulated the guiding principles for AI applications.
Cue can be had from the realities hoodwinked by AI-generated content and deepfake. In general, the inability to differentiate between the virtually created content and the real content is posing a bigger threat and could be devastating in some instances. Consequential to the advancements in the usage of AI, machine learning, and other contemporary technologies, the generative AI models are gaining popularity in different fields, nevertheless, a consensus about the shared goals considering ethical concerns is ineluctable.
The issues of morality with AI are pertinent from the social and moral perspective. Especially, in the academic domain, the dependence upon outcomes from generative AI diminishes novelty in thinking and steals some opportunities to hone skills. Inappropriate usage of AI may lead to passivity and conceal the real capabilities of individuals, and the inequalities will not come to the fore. Nevertheless, the judicious use of AI will raise the threshold for starting critical thinking, and problem solving, offer flexibility and independent functioning. Therefore, ethics becomes crucial before practising the AI applications as some who have respect for ethics will use it for furthering their cognitive skills and supplementing the outcomes while those disregarding ethics will over-rely on them and may expect machines to replace them and eventually lose their proficiencies and latent capacities in due course of time.
Apart from the users, the developers of AI tools have to be careful about ethics as it’s ignorance will culminate in losing trust in technology. The prudence in algorithms and data utilization in training the tools for ingraining artificial intelligence in them is essential to avoid opaque decision-making where algorithms may yield even impracticable outcomes without any worthwhile reasoning. Internet-based AI applications in executing a search, query response, recommendations, surveillance, process automation, smart manufacturing, creating autonomous systems, robotics, image detection, language, speech, health sector, services, transportation, e-commerce, education, governance, cybersecurity, and other domains are to be overseen from the respective political and socioeconomic conditions for avoiding any unforeseen damage.
Thus, the ethics in human-computer interactions is exigent and a suitable ethics framework in social and technological context needs to be set up. The key aspects to be looked into for the safe and successful proliferation of AI are the incorporation of ethical principles of humanity, equality, and, impartial in the design and execution of AI-based systems and processes. The apprehensions for privacy, personal data, and data protection are to be made the guiding principles in the overall governance of all technology advancements. The biases creeping into AI systems due to the type and biases in the available data for training are likely to impact the deliveries from such intelligent systems. For example, if the training data set is incorrect, then the learning biases will lead to the AI tool yielding wrong outcomes, which will have harmful consequences. Hence, the algorithms and machine learning models at the back of the AI developments must be under stringent regulations. Further, AI systems should not be allowed to mortify human abilities. From the nation’s point of view, national security and sovereignty are the cornerstones of building AI systems.
For this, the national strategies and regulations provided by the government will play a pivotal role. However, all non-government actors and the private sector must come out with their charter of ethics in AI application in coherence with the proclamations of respective governments befitting the local needs.
The UNESCO recommendations on the ethics of Artificial Intelligence of 2022 call for, a universal framework of values, principles and actions in alignment with international laws for the same, embedding ethics in all stages of the AI system life cycle. Besides, the AI system must promote, and protect equality, and cultural diversity, safeguard the interests of present and future generations along with preserving the environment and biodiversity ecosystems. Discussions on open forums for multistakeholder discussions and consensus building on ethical issues about AI systems would help in regulating the implementations. Accordingly, an overarching international protocol for setting the ethical standards for facilitating AI application development is imminent in larger interest of global community.
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Views expressed above are the author’s own.
