Need to create regulatory framework to withstand AI’s unethical use: Piyush Goyal

There is a need to create a robust regulatory framework with legal and policy assistance to withstand the unethical use of artificial intelligence (AI) and also support effective deployment of modern technology, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said Friday.

At an event organised by the National Law University, Delhi, he also said copyright and AI today stand at the crossroads of a “very disturbing future” as AI has “every potential to disrupt the way we are working today”.

“The speed at which we feel a Chat

GPT or whatever the Chinese are now invented, I don’t even recognize that. But irrespective, I do believe we are a long way away before we can consider that to be dependable,” Goyal said.

His statement comes after DeepSeek, a Chinese AI startup, became the most downloaded app.

“It is important that policy makers and I receive your help to create the right regulatory framework, not necessarily only in copyrights, but through the various aspects of law that can be impacted through use of AI, and come up with robust regulations that can withstand both the misuse or unethical use of AI and which will also support ethical use of modern practices or technologies,” Goyal said.

Noting that the government is seeing how it can engage with experts and colleges across the country to see what regulations need change to be able to adapt with modern times, he said: “I do hope we'll spend the next 12 or 18 months in working out more contemporary regulatory framework”.

On the issue of copyright and AI, he said one sees near perfect counterfeits and copyrights these days.

“One can visit China, and you can get all your Louis Vuitton and Hermes bags, also from a range of probably Rs 1,000-10 lakh, and you won't be able to prima facie (find the difference), and that after a month or two, it will start getting spoilt,” the minister said, adding that this is the case with a lot of substandard goods that used to come into the country.

However, India is trying to stop these substandard imports through a greater focus on quality control orders and compete on equal terms with other high quality products.

“Copyright and artificial intelligence today literally stand at the crossroads of a very, very disturbing future where we can either convert the use of AI ethically to advantage so that we can do a good thing as regulators of copyright, or we may land up with smart ways, through unethical use of AI, to misuse copyright protection… AI, in fact, truly has every potential to disrupt the way we are working today,” Goyal added.

While on the one hand, AI can add to creativity, on the other hand, it can disrupt the authorship of genuine innovators and their rights, he cautioned.

“But personally, I am not very worried about the advent of technology,” he said adding that technology can become a tool, but cannot ever substitute the human mind.

“I do believe, with all advent of technology through the years, the human indomitable spirit has always prevailed. And I am very confident that in the years ahead, we will continue to see the human mind holding forth, the human mind prevailing over all artificial intelligence,” he said.

As per the minister, the Patents Office granted one lakh patents in 2024, from 6,000 patents in 2014.