Internet Governance Events

Transference: Reimagining Data Systems: Beyond the Gender Binary

torsha — 2021-12-15T12:58:31Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) invites you to participate in a day-long convening on the rights of transgender persons, specifically right to privacy and digital rights. Through this convening, we hope to highlight the concerns of transgender persons in accessing digital data systems and the privacy challenges faced by the community. These challenges include access to their rights — their right to self-identify their gender and welfare services offered by the State and the privacy challenges faced by transgender and intersex persons in revealing their identity.

As the meaning of the word ‘Transference’ goes, through this convening, as a learning, we hope to capture and transfer the realities of transgender persons with engaging and being a part of digital data systems in India. Given the rapid digitisation of different public and private data systems in India, we hope to initiate a conversation that understands their struggles and challenges to realistically initiate the re-imagination of data systems — digital and otherwise — one that is mindful about their everyday struggles with privacy and access.

Owing to the history of systemic exclusions faced by transgender persons, it is important to highlight their difficulties in accessing technological systems and the impact on their privacy, as central issues that require serious consideration. Presently, their realities seem to be ignored by the State while designing most technology laws and policies governing digital systems.

Background

In the landmark verdict in 2014, NALSA Vs Union of India, the Supreme Court of India for the first time recognised the right of an individual to self-identify their gender as male, female or transgender. This verdict detailed nine directives to be implemented by the central and state governments in India for the inclusion of transgender persons.

Similarly, 2017 was a watershed moment in India’s constitutional history when the Supreme Court held the right to privacy to be a fundamental right. More importantly, the Court expounded on this right and held that the protection of an individual’s gender identity is an essential component of the right to privacy and that privacy at its core includes the preservation of personal intimacies, autonomy, the sanctity of family life, marriage, procreation, the home and sexual orientation.

The 2017 privacy judgement led to the Supreme Court pronouncing the Navtej Johar v Union of India in 2018, striking down the Koushal judgement and decriminalising acts of consensual non-hetrosexual acts of intimacy. In 2019, the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019 was introduced in Parliament for the regulation and protection of personal data. The PDP Bill classifies data into two categories as (i) personal data; and (ii) sensitive personal data. As per the PDP Bill, data identifying the transgender status and intersex status falls within the ambit of sensitive personal data. Around the time of the PDP Bill being tabled in Parliament, the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act 2019 was passed by the Parliament despite severe opposition to the Bill from civil society members as well as members of Parliament.

There is a lack of clarity on the interplay between the PDP Bill and the Transgender Act and the challenges the PDP Bill may pose to the transgender community. Moving beyond mere mentions in the definition of the law through a cisgendered heteronormative lens, it is important for the discourse on data and privacy to broaden its scope to realistically include people of different sexual orientations, gender and sexual identities, gender expressions and sex characteristics.

About the Event

Through these panel discussions, we propose to highlight the concerns of transgender persons with accessing digital data systems and the privacy challenges faced by them . These challenges include access to their rights — their right to self-identify their gender and access welfare services offered by the State and the privacy challenges faced by transgender persons in revealing their identity.

The objective of these discussions is to initiate more conversations about the technological and data exclusions faced by this historically marginalised community in India. The intent is to better understand the realities of transgender persons and contribute to the larger advocacy on privacy, intersectionality and (digital) systems design.

Click to register for the event here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/transference-reimagining-data-systems-beyond-the-gender-binary

Launching CIS’s Flagship Report on Private Crypto-Assets

Admin — 2021-12-03T15:16:27Z

The Centre for Internet & Society is launching its flagship report on regulating private crypto-assets in India, as part of its newly formed Financial Technology (or Fintech) research agenda. This event will serve as a venue to bring together the various stakeholders involved in the crypto-asset space to discuss the state of crypto-asset regulation in India from a multitude of perspectives.

About the private crypto-assets report

The first output under this agenda is our report on regulating private cryptocurrencies in India. This report aims to act as an introductory resource for policymakers who are looking to implement a regulatory framework for private crypto-assets. The report covers the technical elements of crypto-assets, their history, proposed use cases as well as its benefits and limitations. It also examines how crypto-assets fit within India’s current regulatory and legislative frameworks and makes clear recommendations for the same.

About the Event

The launch event will feature an initial presentation by researchers at CIS on the various findings and recommendations of its flagship report. This will be followed by a moderated discussion with 5 panelists who represent the space in policy, academia and industry. The discussion will be centered around the current status of crypto-assets in India, the government’s new proposed regulations and what the future holds for the Indian crypto market.

The confirmed panelists are as follows:

Tanvi Ratna - Founder, Policy 4.0 and expert on blockchain and cryptocurrencies
Shehnaz Ahmed - Senior Resident Fellow and Fintech Lead at Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy
Nithya R. - Chief Executive Officer, Unos.Finace
Prashanth Irudayaraj - Head of R&D, Zebpay
Vipul Kharbanda - Non resident Fellow specialising in Fintech at CIS
Aman Nair - Policy Offer, CIS (Moderator)

Registration link: https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_TdY-EPLoRvGY2rfsq4CENw

Agenda

17.30 - 17.35

Welcome Note

17.35 - 18.35

The status of private crypto-assets in India

Presentation on CIS’ flagship Report on regulating private crypto-assets in India
Moderated discussion with panelists across industry, government, journalism and academia providing their insight as to the current and future state of private crypto-assets, and their regulation, in India.

18.35 - 19.00

Audience questions and discussion

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/launching-cis-flagship-report-on-private-crypto-assets

How to Shut Down Internet Shutdowns

pranav — 2020-02-03T11:13:12Z

This talk will focus on the challenges and opportunities for research on internet shutdowns after the judgement of the Supreme Court in Anuradha Bhasin v. Union of India. Stepping beyond the judgement, there will be a wider discussion on the practice of whitelists, blocking powers of the central government.

About the Speaker

Apar Gupta is the Executive Director of the Internet Freedom Foundation.

Apar has been fighting the good fight for digital rights. While in law school almost 20 years ago, he wrote a legal commentary on the IT Act that is now in its third edition. As a lawyer in the Supreme Court, he worked on landmark cases such as on Section 66A, Intermediary Liability, Internet Shutdowns, the Right to Privacy and Privacy.

He also helped create public campaigns to advance net neutrality, reform defamation laws, fight Internet shutdowns and create a privacy statute. Apar previously ran his own successful law firm, was profiled in Outlook Magazine and listed in Forbes India's list of 30 under 30. He has also worked as a commercial litigator and partner in top law firms, written papers cited widely in local and international publications and taught courses at NLS and NLU.

RSVP here, or by sending an email Torsha (torsha@cis-india.org).

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/how-to-shutdown-internet-shutdowns

Cybersecurity Visuals Media Handbook: Launch Event

saumyaa — 2019-12-06T09:27:37Z

6th December | 6 pm | Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore

The existing cybersecurity imagery in media publications has been observed to be limited in its communication of the discourse prevailing in cybersecurity policy circles, relying heavily on stereotypes such as hooded men, padlocks, and binary codes.

In order to enable a clearer, more nuanced representation of cybersecurity concepts, we, at CIS, along with Design Beku are launching the Cybersecurity Visuals Media Handbook. This handbook has been conceived to be a concise guide for media publications to understand the specific concepts within cybersecurity and use it as a reference to create visuals that are more informative, relevant, and look beyond stereotypes.

We will be launching the interactive digital handbook on 6th December, 2019, at the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, at 6 pm. The event would include a discussion on the purpose, process, and concepts behind this illustrated guide by CIS researchers and Design Beku.

The launch will be followed by a panel discussion on Digital Media Illustrations & the Politics of Technology. We will be joined by Padmini Ray Murray, Paulanthony George, and Kruthika N S in the panel. It will be moderated by Saumyaa Naidu.

Padmini Ray Murray

Padmini founded the Design Beku collective in 2018 to help not-for-profit organisations explore their potential through research-led design and digital development. Trained as an academic researcher, Padmini currently as the head of communications at Obvious, a design studio. She regularly gives talks and publishes on the necessity of technology and design to be decolonial, local, and ethical.

Paulanthony George

Paulanthony hates writing bios in the third person.
My research focuses on the relationships between made objects, the maker and the behaviour of making, in the context of spreadable digital media (and behaviours stemming from it). I study internet memes inside and outside of India and phenomenon such as dissent, satire, free expression and ambivalent behaviour fostered by them. The research is at the intersection of digital ethnography, culture studies, human-computer interaction, humour studies and critical theory. I spend my time watching people. I draw them, the way they are, the way some people want to be and sometimes I have interesting conversations with them.

Kruthika N S

Kruthika NS is a lawyer at LawNK and researcher at the Sports Law & Policy Centre, Bengaluru. She uses art as a medium to explore the intersections of the law and society, with gender justice featuring as the central theme of her work. Her art has included subjects such as the #MeToo movement in India, and the feminist principles of the internet, among several other doodles.

Saumyaa Naidu

Saumyaa is a designer and researcher at the Centre for Internet and Society.

Agenda
6:00 - 6:15 pm - Introduction
6:15 - 6:45 pm - Presentation on the Media Handbook by Paulanthony George
6:45 - 7:00 pm - Tea/ Coffee
7:00 - 8:00 pm - Panel discussion on Digital Media Illustrations & the Politics of Technology
8:00 - 8:30 pm - Tea/ Coffee and Snacks

The interactive version of handbook can be accessed here. The print versions of the handbook can be accessed at: Single Scroll Printing, Tiled-Paste Printing.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/blog/cybersecurity-visuals-media-handbook-launch-event

Internet Speech: Perspectives on Regulation and Policy

akriti — 2019-04-01T16:38:54Z

The Centre for Internet & Society and the University of Munich (LMU), Germany are jointly organizing an international symposium at India Habitat Centre in New Delhi on April 5, 2019

Click to download the agenda

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/internet-speech-perspectives-on-regulation-and-policy

SOTM Asia 2018

Admin — 2018-11-28T01:22:44Z

Saumyaa Naidu, Aayush Rathi and Ambika Tandon attend State of the Map 2018 conference co-organized by the Centre for Internet & Society and Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore on November 17 and 18, 2018.

State of the Map Asia 2018 featured two full days of talks, workshops, an opening and closing keynote. It was an exciting two days! The program was created by curating proposals from the community and through a scoring process by the committee.

The program was held at the Indian Institude of Management campus in Bangalore. Much of the program was between two auditoriums. We also had plenty of space set aside for breakout sessions and birds of a feather meetups. (Click here to download the program.)

Click here to see the agenda

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/sotm-asia-2018

Workshop on Cybersecurity Illustrations

Admin — 2018-12-10T06:13:50Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) is organizing a workshop to engage with the design community in order to examine, explore, and expand this visual narrative of cybersecurity.

Concept Note

The notions around cybersecurity are deeply influenced by the visual associations available on it in the public sphere. The existing imagery on cybersecurity usually consists of stereotypical visual elements such as a silhouette of a man, binary codes, locks, etc. The dark colour palette in these visuals primarily comprising shades of blues and greens adds to the masculine imagery. The conception of the term is limited by these images. The Centre for Internet and Society hence, plans to engage with the design community in order to examine, explore, and expand this visual narrative of cybersecurity. CIS is organising a workshop on the 15th of November, in collaboration with a design collective in order to brainstorm ideas on creating illustrations for cybersecurity that shift the focus from coding to the human aspects.

Presently, the visuals suggest only data breaches when it comes to cybersecurity. Several nuanced concepts such as the implication on more vulnerable populations are not reflected in the images. The illustrations can also present the different stakeholders in the cybersecurity ecosystem. The workshop would be directed at generating more dialogues on cybersecurity through visuals.

Agenda

10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.: Introduction and Presentation of the Brief

11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.: Brainstorming session (ideation and suggestions from participants for keywords)

1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.: Lunch

2:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.: Breakaway session in groups (creation of draft illustrations)

Download the file to read more

You can find the event report here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/workshop-on-cybersecurity-illustrations

Roundtable on Cyber-security and the Private Sector

pranav — 2018-10-15T09:18:35Z

The Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) invites you to a roundtable discussion on cyber-security and the private sector. The event will be held at Omidyar Network office in Bangalore from 10.00 a.m. to 4.00 p.m.

An increased proliferation of cyber attacks from multiple vectors and a variety of actors has necessitated a multi-stakeholder response to cyber-security that requires private sector involvement, both at the policy and technical fields. This contribution has come in the recent past not only through active involvement at the domestic levels but also through norm-setting in the international arena.

This symposium seeks to discuss the various cyber-security concerns in the Indian private sector and maps initiatives being undertaken by various actors towards furthering cyber-security in an attempt to identify challenges, points of tension, brainstorm solutions-thereby mapping the way forward through engagement not only with private sector actors but also in dialogue with civil society and policy-makers. CIS has undertaken some preliminary research in this area to further discussion in this area and serve as a forum for sharing perspectives for various stakeholders.

The symposium will be divided into three sessions, broadly in the form of a roundtable with different modus operandi in each session.

A Concept Note for the event can be found here, and the agenda can be found here. If you would like to attend, please rsvp pranav@cis-india.org, or register here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/roundtable-on-cyber-security-and-the-private-sector

Symposium on India’s Cyber Strategy

Admin — 2018-10-02T06:02:59Z

CIS organised a Symposium on India’s Cyber Strategy.

The event saw a total of around 30 participants from industry, academia, law/policy, media, and civil society, and had a panel comprised of Asoke Mukerji, Madhulika Srikumar, and Parminder Jeet Singh.

Presentations

India’s Strategic Interests in the Norms Setting Process in Cyberspace (Presentation by Ambassador Asoke Kumar Mukerji, Former Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations)
The Potential for the Normative Regulation of Cyberspace (Presentation by Arindrajit Basu)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/symposium-on-india2019s-cyber-strategy

Workshop on Python

Admin — 2018-04-10T14:59:29Z

A workshop on Python will be organized at the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) Bangalore office on April 14, 2018.

The workshop will be conducted by Bharath Kumar, who works at AppSecCo, Bangalore. He is also volunteering with CIS on the Cyber Security project. Those of you who intend on attending the workshop, please fill up this short questionnaire by Thursday, as Bharath will be using the responses to finalise the content for the workshop. Fill the questionnaire here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/workshop-on-python

A Methods Workshop for Researching Future of Work in India

Admin — 2020-03-05T18:59:11Z

Centre for Internet & Society and the Department of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi is conducting a workshop in New Delhi on March 28, 2018.

Read the event report in pdf format here.

Industry 4.0 is widely understood as the technical integration of cyber physical systems into production and logistics, and the use of IoTs and services in processes, which are designed to bring about significant changes in business models, downstream services and work organisations.

Labour markets are complex and are impacted by wide variety of contextual factors such as policy, informal sectors, and immigration. Technological adoption is increasingly a key factor impacting labour markets. The impact and effect of technological adoption is also complex.Questions such as whether the technology is augmenting the job, automating the job/parts of the job, digitizing the job/part of the job, and if this is resulting in unemployment or a change and re-shuffling in tasks arise. In a similar vein, as pointed out in a 2017 McKinsey Report on labour markets in India, declining labourparticipation also does not necessarily equate to unemployment and could mean instead more people are staying in education etc. International studies have concluded that jobs in developing countries will be more at risk than those in developed countries because of a larger workforce employed in routine jobs, yetit is unclear if these studies have fully accounted for context and local labour market structures.

With the goal of exploring research questions and methodologies and facilitating the exchange of ideas, prior to commencing research, CIS in collaboration withthe Department of Management at IITD, will organise a roundtable on the 28th of March 2018 from 10am - 4pm at Committee room, 4th floor, Vishwakarma Bhawan,Dept of Management Studies, IIT Delhi . The event will bring experts and relevant stakeholders together to discuss research questions, methodologies, and sources of data necessary for researching the impact of automation on labour markets in developing countries.

Questions

What are the kinds of quantitative and qualitative changes in employment in response to technological adoption that need to be studied? What methods are needed to study these? What data is needed to study these?
What are the policy processes that are most critical for the research to speak to? Will it be focussed on education? Re-skilling? Market control?
Who are the key stakeholders needed to engage with to undertake this research with respect to the quantitative, qualitative, and policy oriented research.

Agenda (Tentative)

10:00 a.m. Welcome and Tea
10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m.

Session 1: Exploring Research Questions for the Study of Future of Work

11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.

Session 2: Primary Data and the Future of Work: Challenges and Prospects

12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.Lunch
1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.

Session 3: Research Methodologies for the Future of Work

2:30 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.

Session 4: Identifying Stakeholders for the studying Future of Work

3:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. Evening High Tea

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/a-methods-workshop-for-researching-future-of-work-in-india

Roundtable on A.I. and Governance in India

pranav — 2018-04-20T07:41:21Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore is organizing a roundtable on ‘A.I. and Governance in India' at India Islamic Cultural Centre in New Delhi on March 16, 2018 from 10.00 a.m. to 1.30 p.m.

Download the Event Report

The Roundtable seeks to discuss the various issues and challenges surrounding the design, development and use of AI in Governance (including law enforcement and legal institutions).

In line with the changing times, the government, as well as its agencies, have started using technology and digitization to make governance more efficient and accessible. For example,through its flagship project Digital India, the Indian government has undertaken digitization and revamping of systems related to railways, land records, educational resource etc. As the government pursues its digital agenda, artificial intelligence can be a tool for efficiency and decision making. To realize the potential of AI, a clear understanding of the technology and how it can and should be used is necessary. The first step towards a robust AI policy is a sound Information and Communication Technology (ICT) policy that lays the edifice for algorithmic decision making using AI.

Though the adoption of AI in the public sector is still in its nascent stages, the government of India is taking various steps to increase the scale of adoption. The Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry has constituted a task force on AI to facilitate India's economic transformation. This year’s Union Budget also recognised the need for government investment in research, training and skill development in robotics, AI, digital manufacturing, Big Data intelligence and Quantum communications. Though the adoption of AI in the public sector is still in its nascent stages, the government of India is taking various steps to increase the scale of adoption. The Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry has constituted a task force on AI to facilitate India's economic transformation. This year’s Union Budget also recognised the need for government investment in research, training and skill development in robotics, AI, digital manufacturing, Big Data intelligence and Quantum communications.

Our research on the application of AI in Indian governance aims to examine five broad sectors of application: law enforcement, discharge of governmental functions, defense,judicial/administrative decision making, and education. A few of the existing government research initiatives identified by CIS include the Center for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR) hosted by the Indian Defense Research and Development Organization which focuses on research and development of ICT solutions for defense, and the Ministry of Finance’s use of geospatial analytics for their economic survey on human settlements. There are already instances where government bodies are using AI, an example being the case of the Indian Police force, which is revamping its investigation procedures by using Big Data and Artificial Intelligence. The Delhi police has already started using data and analytics to control crime. In the field of agriculture too, the Indian government has partnered with Microsoft to use AI to improve crop production.

While AI can aid governance in numerous ways, there needs to be a system of checks and balances in order to ensure effectiveness, transparency, and accountability. Hence,governance mechanisms must be able to ensure inclusiveness, while minimising the risks that might arise with the use of the technology. Experts have also predicted that, as the government incorporates AI into specific areas of governance- such as service delivery, it will simultaneously need to incorporate it into broader policy structures such as cyber security and the national education framework.

The process of designing a governance ecosystem is a complex one, and AI poses several pre-existing ethical and legal for each application within this ecosystem. The effectiveness ofAI and Machine learning inherently depends on the availability of data, and it is predicted that the most imminent challenge will also involve the same, especially as India becomesincreasingly data dense and the government is entrusted with its citizens’ data. These challenges could range from the collection, storage, and use of data, to having to answerquestions of fairness, safety, and prevention of misuse. This roundtable seeks to deliberate on these questions and more so as to understand how to optimise the use of AI ingovernance for the public interest. In doing so, the roundtable will use preliminary research that CIS has undertaken into the use of AI and governance in India as an entry point into broader discussions on the challenges and benefits and way forward for AI.

Agenda

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/roundtable-on-a-i-and-governance-in-india

Roundtable on AI and Finance in India

saman — 2018-03-11T14:58:55Z

Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) will hold a roundtable on artificial intelligence and finance in India on Wednesday, February 7, 2018 in association with HasGeek and the 50p Conference. The roundtable will take place from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m at TERI (The Energy Resources Institute) in Domlur, Bengaluru.

We invite you all to participate in this roundtable to share and build knowledge about trajectories of AI deployment across sub-sectors of banking in India and the emergent regulatory and public policy concerns.

The objective of the roundtable is to bring together various actors active across the fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning, cognitive computing, financial technologies,and big data credit scoring and online lending, to discuss pressing public policy issues in regards to the utilisation and implementation of AI in the banking and finance sectors of India.

These sectors currently find themselves at the early stages of AI adoption. Such technologies are being implemented to facilitate both front-end and back-end processes by a variety of players with the aim of improving the accessibility, customised user engagement, and quality of current financial services. Leading commercial banks in India have all been working to develop and deploy AI technologies either in house or in partnership with small and large-scale tech companies. Such initiatives have seen the deployment of numerous chatbots and humanoid robots for the purposes of customer service. More significant, however, is the use of such technology by banks and fintech actors to facilitate decision making behind the scenes, on a variety of financial issues including but not limited to credit-worthiness, fraud detection, and investments.

While these sectors are no strangers to the use of big data analytics and similar technologies in aiding with financial decision making and daily operations, the deployment of technologies such as machine learning and natural language processing is still very new. Due to the nascent nature of this phenomenon, little is known about the details of their implications for both producers and consumers. Furthermore, concerns regarding data ownership, liability, and consumer rights have all been raised in light of AI adoption. This roundtable will present us with an opportunity to discuss such issues and begin to fill this knowledge gap.

For agenda and event brochure click here. For RSVP click here. Read the event report here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/roundtable-on-ai-and-finance-in-india

null Bangalore Meet: Special Session on Digital Identity and Privacy

Admin — 2018-01-18T15:09:35Z

Sunil Abraham is giving a talk to the Bengaluru null community on January 19, 2018 at the Centre for Internet & Society office in Bengaluru. The event will be held from 6 p.m. to 8.10 p.m.

null meets are free for anyone to attend. There are absolutely no fees. Just come with an open mind and willingness to share and learn.

Proposed sessions for this event:

Note: The session details including schedule are available below.

Sunil Abraham will be hosting us for a special session on Digital Identity and Privacy issues around it. He will touch upon how the null community can start getting involved in security aspects of things happening around us on privacy and related topics.

Tentative Talking Points

Cover something about digital identities and privacy issues - We do a lot of security discussions but mostly don't cover privacy as much
Maybe touch upon how null folks should start getting involved with what is happening around us in terms of security etc
Talk about the IETF security standards and related topics

https://cis-india.org/

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/null-bangalore-meet-january-19

Roundtable on A.I. and Manufacturing and Services

Admin — 2018-01-18T13:44:15Z

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore is organizing a roundtable on ‘A.I. and Manufacturing and Services’ on the 19th of January, 2018 from 2 to 5 pm at ‘The Energy and Resources Institute’ (TERI) Bangalore. The Roundtable seeks to discuss the various issues and challenges surrounding the implementation of AI and related technologies on manufacturing processes and services.

Since the Industrial Revolution machines have substituted human labour and helped industries save time and money. This was succeeded by the advent of computers and technology which helped in completing tasks with better speed and accuracy than the human brain. The emergence of machine-learning technology and artificial intelligence has now made machines capable of doing work that was earlier considered to be something that could only be done by humans. From the use of AI in understanding customer shopping trends to its use in making automobiles, AI is becoming more of a norm than an exception. The analytics of how customers shop is now helping companies forecast their manufacturing needs. The synergy of technology and machines i.e. smart manufacturing, not only changes manufacturing and shipping but also improves worker safety. Different forms of smart manufacturing are also starting to come up in India: Wipro and Infosys have launched AI platforms, and the Indian Institute of Science is developing a smart factory with support from Boeing Company and General Electric. Infosys has also released an AI platform, ‘Nia’, which is programmed to forecast revenue and understand customer behaviour.

The instances of use of machines to substitute human workforce, in some cases, has brought about a sense of worry. Recent trends in factory hiring show that jobs are being lost to automated forms of labour, further evidenced by a report from the research firm HorsesforSources, which predicts that India is set to lose 640,000 low-skilled job positions to automation by the year 2021.The IT sector in India is also under risk from the use of AI. Reports have also found that the rising unemployment in the IT sector has led to increased pressure on labour regulators.

Although there are some studies that state that the use of AI would bring about a market for people who would need to work along with AI, the FICCI and EY’s 2016 Report on the Future of jobs and its implication on Indian higher education suggests that one of the ways to combat the loss of jobs was reskilling and upskilling the labour force. India has taken the first step towards this by launching the National Skill Development Mission.

From the use of neural networks to monitor steel plants for packing and shipping groceries, the use of intelligent machines has begun disrupting traditional business models in the industry. However, these advancements raise questions around labour, ethics, liability, and machine-human cooperation. Dialogue and debate are needed to understand how AI is being used in manufacturing, the potential benefits, and challenges of the same, and a way forward that optimizes innovation and protects human rights.

Roundtable Agenda

Friday 19th January | 2:00 p.m - 5:00 p.m.

2:00 - 2:30 Introduction and setting the scene

2:30 - 3:30 Discussion on the AI landscape in the manufacturing and services industry:

Manner and extent of integration of AI into manufacturing and services
Relevant stakeholders and their roles in implementing AI in manufacturing and services
Future of AI and related technologies in AI in manufacturing and services
Impact on work and labour

3:30 - 4:30 Discussion on challenges and solutions towards regulating AI in India:

Challenges faced in the conception and implementation of the AI product/ service, and reasons for such challenges.
Regulatory provisions for implementation of AI in the manufacturing and services under the existing laws, and need for reforms.
Challenges posed by AI to existing policy and regulatory frameworks in the Indian as well as the global context, and possible solutions.

4.30 - 5.00 Conclusion and way forward

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/roundtable-on-ai-and-manufacturing-and-services