IIT Madras sets up Centre for Responsible Artificial Intelligence

New Delhi: Artificial intelligence (AI), considered a boon until a decade ago, is now being looked at with apprehension and worry. Most of these are connected with its unethical use and widespread impact on the industry, the economy, and our existence. The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) has established a Centre for Responsible AI (CeRAI), an interdisciplinary research centre, to ensure AI based solutions’ ethical and responsible development.

One of the primary objectives of CeRAI will be to produce high-quality research outputs, such as publishing research articles in high-impact journals/conferences, white papers, and patents, among others. It will work towards creating technical resources such as curated datasets (universal and India-specific), software, toolkits, etc., concerning the domain of Responsible AI.

The centre conducted its first workshop on 'Responsible AI for India' on May 15. Google has become the first platinum member of this consortium and has contributed US$ 1 Million to this Centre.

Addressing the workshop attendees, Mr. Abhishek Singh, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Digital India Corporation, said, “There is a need for non-biased and non-discriminatory AI framework as we have unique requirements that require customization as per our requirements."

The future of AI is bright with continued advancements in technology. Investment in AI reached $93.5 billion in 2021, according to Statista. Business applications of AI alongside other emerging technology like machine learning can have a huge impact on solving not only technological but several societal issues.

The centre was formally inaugurated on April 27 by Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology and Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Government of India.

A panel discussion on 'Responsible AI for India' was also held during the workshop. Highlighting the need for such centres, Prof. V. Kamakoti, Director of IIT Madras, said, "We have now reached a stage where we have to assign responsibility to AI tools and interpret the reasons for the output the AI gives. Aspects of human augmentation, biased data sets, risk of leakage of collected data and the introduction of new policies besides substantial research must be addressed."

"AI models need to provide performance guarantees appropriate to the applications they are deployed in. This covers data integrity, privacy, the robustness of decision making, etc. We need research into developing assurance and risk models for AI systems in different sectors,” said Prof. Balaraman Ravindran, Head, CeRAI, IIT Madras.

The centre also plans to conduct specialized sensitization/training programs for all stakeholders to understand issues of Ethical and Responsible AI in a better manner to enable them to contribute meaningfully towards solving problems in their respective domains. It will hold a series of technical events in the form of workshops and conferences on specialized themes of deployable AI systems, said the press release issued by IIT Madras. (India Science Wire)