SPEECH P. WILSON MP ON 27.9.2023 IN 2ND WORLD SUMMIT OF THE COMMITTEES OF FUTURE HELD AT URUGUAY

SPEECH P. WILSON MP ON 27.9.2023 IN 2^ND WORLD SUMMIT OF THE COMMITTEES OF FUTURE HELD AT URUGUAY ON THE ROLE OF PARLIAMENT IN THE DEMOCRACY OF THE FUTURE – PARLIAMENTS’ FOCUS ON REGULATORY FRAMEWORKS IN THE CONTEXT OF AI 

Good afternoon to you all

On behalf of Indian Parliamentary delegation, I thank the organizers especially Mr Rodrigo Goni, The Chairman of committee of future who have extended invitation and giving us an opportunity to make this intervention.

Democracy means government of the people, by the people and for the people. I come from India which is the largest Democracy in the world.

Parliaments, as the central institution of democracies, embody the will of the people and carry all their expectations. Parliaments as the key legislative organ have the task of adapting society’s laws to its rapidly changing needs and circumstances and towards strengthening the  democracy.

Parliaments’ focus on regulatory frameworks in the context of AI 

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been redefining society in ways that have never been anticipated. While welcoming the AI technology but we cannot ignore that AI also poses great threat to the human society as such and therefore human beings with their natural intelligence should always keep artificial intelligence under their control at all times.
• The rapid development of AI and its increasing influence on all areas of life are undeniable. AI applications can be found across almost all sectors.
• While AI is constantly opening up new opportunities, it also poses the challenge of understanding and managing the risks associated with its use.
• There are demands from the AI experts for aglobal regulatory framework for AI, similar to the treaties used to regulate nuclear arms use, as the competition to advance in the technology could lead to safety concerns being sidelined.
• The Parliaments should ensure that powerful AI systems are developed only if their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable.
• There is an urgent need to adopt a regulatory framework by the government that should be applicable across sectors. The regulatory framework should ensure that the use of AI use cases is regulated on a risk-based framework where high risk use cases that directly impact humans are regulated through legally binding obligations. The Parliament task is onerous and challenging because the issues at stake pertain not just to regulation but also to ethics, privacy, transparency, biases, manipulations. The challenges posed to the democracies are complacent and manifold. One important challenge which the AI poses to us that it will lead to lot of unemployment and lakhs and lakhs of employees will be losing jobs. Therefore, regulations should take care of job security and allow usage of AI technology only in specific areas which really requires.
• The Parliaments should urge the Governments to establish independent regulatory bodies responsible for framing regulations concerning various aspects of AI, including defining principles for responsible AI and their application based on risk assessment, regular auditing of AI applications so as to effectively regulate and restrict AI applications.
• Before legislating any law relating to AI, Parliamentarians should place a draft law and engage in public consultations with the general public, stake holders, experts in the field, eminent bodies, human rights organizations, woman organizations, child rights organizations, study the global best practices and also carry out legislation impact assessment and then frame regulatory law on AI.
• The Law on AI shall ensure that principles of responsible AI are made applicable at each phase of AI framework lifecycle like design, development, validation, deployment, monitoring and refinement periodical auditing

Parliamentary committee on future institutions have been established in in Uruguay which is focusing on democracy of future, Anticipatory Governance in Parliament which is highly commendable and such commission is also seen in few countries like Chile,  Brazil, Austria, South Korea , Iceland, Philippines, Lithuania. It’s high time such commissions can be considered to be established in all Parliaments to focus on the democracy of the future and on Anticipatory governance.

I request the Chairman of future commission of Parliament of Uruguay to adopt this as one of the resolutions in this conference and do the needful.

Thank you.