Twenty-nine-member countries, including India, the UK, Japan and France, which are part of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI), on Wednesday affirmed their commitment to work towards advanced, safe, secure, and trustworthy artificial intelligence (AI), while also looking at relevant regulations, policies, standards, and other initiatives.This assumes significance given that India, which is hosting the GPAI summit this year, and also the lead chair for GPAI in 2024, has been pitching for regulating AI through the prism of user harm, while not hindering the innovation.Further, all the member-countries have also agreed to jointly come up with a global set of basic principles that will shape the path for AI regulations.“The 29-member countries have unanimously adopted the New Delhi declaration which promises to position GPAI at the front and the centre of shaping the future of AI in terms of both innovation and creating collaborative AI between partner nations,” said Rajeev Chandrasekhar, minister of state for electronics and IT, on Day 2 of the GPAI summit in New Delhi.“There is a serious consensus that we have to move fast as countries in broadly two directions. One is about deploying AI, collaborating work with like-minded countries in exploiting AI for healthcare, agriculture, sustainability, language translation, etc. At the same time, the countries are concerned with safety and trust issues that emerge from AI,” Chandrasekhar added.Over the next few months, the countries will work together to lay out some broad principles on AI, including what guardrails should be there.“We recognise the rapid pace of improvement in advanced AI systems and their potential to generate economic growth, innovation, and jobs across various sectors as well as to benefit societies. We acknowledge the need to harness new opportunities and mitigate the risks arising from the development, deployment, and use of such technologies,” the declaration document of the GPAI ministers said.They also acknowledged the need for equitable access to resources, to be considered, accounted for, or addressed in order for societies to benefit from and build competitive AI solutions.“We underscore GPAI’s pivotal role in addressing contemporary AI issues, including generative AI, through applied AI projects aimed at addressing societal problems and global challenges, maximising the benefits and mitigating associated risks,” the document said.The member countries also agreed to India’s pitch on developing the use of AI innovation in supporting sustainable agriculture as a new thematic priority for GPAI.

The ministers collectively agreed that a risk-proportionate trustworthy AI applications for ensuring sustainable food production systems and implementing resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, help regenerate ecosystems, is crucial.