India drawing up laws to regulate deepfakes: minister

INDIA is drawing up rules for governing deepfakes, a top minister said on Thursday (Nov 23), a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi raised concerns over the technology.

“We plan to complete drafting the regulations within the next few weeks,” Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw told reporters after a meeting with academics, industry groups and social media companies.

Deepfakes are realistic yet fabricated videos created by artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms trained on online footage.

In his opening remarks at a virtual summit of G20 nations on Wednesday, Modi called on global leaders to jointly work towards regulating AI, and raised concerns over the negative impacts of deepfakes on society.

The process of drafting regulations would also look at penalties on both the person uploading the content and the social media platform on which it was posted, Vaishnaw added.

The move comes as countries across the world race to draw up rules to regulate AI.

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President Joe Biden last month signed an executive order requiring developers of AI systems that pose risks to US national security, the economy or public health or safety to share the results of safety tests with the US government before they are released to the public.

The United Nations too has created a 39-member advisory body to address issues in the governance of AI, while European lawmakers have prepared a draft set of rules which could be approved by next month. REUTERS