Today in History (July 3rd, 1908)
On July 3rd, 1908, Bal Gangadhar Tilak was arrested for sedition by the British. Bal Gangadhar Tilak, born Keshav Gangadhar Tilak and popularly known as Lokmanya Tilak, was a popular Indian nationalist and Independence activist who was one of the first popular leaders of the freedom movement.
Let’s revise
A) Who was the founder of Narmda Bachao movement?
Ans. Medha Patkar
B) The first synchronous census was taken under British rule in ______ by W.C. Plowden (Census Commissioner of India).
Ans. 1881
C) The census year of ______ is called the year of “The Great Divide” in the demographic history of India.
Ans. 1921
D) The first census of independent India was done in the year of ____
Ans. 1951
E) The latest full census available was done in the year of _____
Ans. 2011
F) ‘K’ shaped economic growth is _______
Ans. Increasing Inequality
G) How many quarters are there in Indian financial year?
Ans. Four
H) Which country will host men’s Junior Hockey World Cup in 2025?
Ans. India
I) Which former Indian cricketer was appointed as the ambassador of ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024?
Ans. Yuvraj
Summary of Today’s News
The legal justice system and Generative Artificial Intelligence
• Generative AI a powerful force to revolutionise society in ground-breaking ways,
• Now the existing legal frameworks and judicial precedents of pre-AI world will need to struggle to effectively govern this rapidly-evolving technology.
• Safe harbour and liability fixation
• One of the most persistent and contentious issues in Internet governance has been the fixing of liability on “intermediaries” for content hosted by them.
• The landmark Shreya Singhal judgment addressed this by upholding Section 79 of the IT Act which grants intermediaries ‘safe harbour’ protection against hosting content. However, its application to Generative AI tools remains challenging.
The contrasting views:-
• Intermediaries should be responsible
• Intermediaries should not be responsible
• In Christian Louboutin Sas vs Nakul Bajaj and Ors (2018), the Delhi High Court held that safe harbour protection applies solely to “passive” intermediaries, referring to entities functioning as mere conduits or passive transmitters of information.
• However, in the context of Large Language Models (LLMs), making a distinction between user-generated and platform-generated content is increasingly challenging.
• Additionally, liability in the case of AI chatbots arises once the information is reposted on other platforms by the user;
• Mere/only response to a user prompt is not considered dissemination.
• Generative AI outputs have already led to legal conflicts in various jurisdictions.
• In June 2023, a radio host in the United States filed a lawsuit against Open AI, alleging that Chat GPT had defamed him.
• The ambiguity in classifying GAI tools, whether as intermediaries, conduits, or active creators, will complicate the ability of courts to assign liability, particularly in user reposts.
• The copyright related problems
• Section 16 of Indian Copyright Act 1957 specifically provides that “no person” shall be entitled to protection of copyright except by the provisions of the Act.
• As in India, reluctance persists regarding the provisions of copyright protection to works generated by AI globally.
The critical/important questions are:-
• should existing copyright provisions be revised to accommodate AI?
• If AI-generated works gain protection, would co-authorship with a human be mandatory?
• Should recognition extend to the user,
• The programme itself, and by extension, the programmer, or both?
• The 161st Parliamentary Standing Committee Report found that the Copyright Act of 1957 is “not well equipped to facilitate authorship and ownership by Artificial Intelligence”.
• Under current Indian law, a copyright owner can take legal action against anyone who infringes on his/her work with remedies such as injunctions and damages.
• However, the question of who is responsible for copyright infringement by AI tools remains unclear.
• As previously argued, classifying GAI tools, whether as intermediaries, conduits, or active creators, will complicate the courts’ ability to assign liability.
• ChatGPT’s ‘Terms of Use’ attempt to shift liability to the user for any illegal output.
• But the enforceability of such terms in India is uncertain.
• The landmark K.S. Puttaswamy judgment (2017) by the Supreme Court of India established a strong foundation for privacy jurisprudence in the country, leading to the enactment of the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 (DPDP).
• While traditional data aggregators or consent managers raise privacy concerns during the collection and distribution of personal information, Generative AI introduces a new layer of complexity.
• The DPDP Act introduces the “right to erasure“ as well as “right to be forgotten”.
• However, once a GAI model is trained on a dataset, it cannot truly “unlearn” the information it has already absorbed. This raises a critical question.
• How can individuals exercise control over their personal information when it is woven into the very fabric of a powerful AI model?
The way forward
• First, learning by doing. Consider granting GAI platforms temporary immunity from liability following a sandbox approach. This approach allows responsible development while gathering data to identify legal issues that could inform future laws and regulations. Second, data rights and responsibilities.
• The process of data acquisition for GAI training requires an overhaul. Developers must prioritise legal compliance by ensuring proper licensing and compensation for the intellectual property used in training models. Solutions could include revenue-sharing or licensing agreements with data owners.
Justice cannot be sold and purchased
• The High Court, led by Justice Swarana Kanta Sharma, has declared that criminal cases involving allegations of sexual violence cannot be dismissed in exchange for monetary settlements, emphasizing that “justice is not for sale.”
• This decision came after an accused sought to quash an FIR filed by a victim, whom he allegedly sexually assaulted, by paying her a settlement.
• Despite the accused’s claim of a consensual relationship and an amicable settlement, the court highlighted the serious allegations and the need for a trial to ascertain the truth, underscoring the importance of justice over financial agreements.
PM Modi not attending SCO summit in Astana
• External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar will represent India at the SCO summit in Kazakhstan, replacing Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
• This decision might disappoint Central Asian nations due to Modi’s previous cancellations of engagements with them.
• The summit, attended by leaders including Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and Shehbaz Sharif, will focus on multilateral cooperation in trade, connectivity, and counter-terrorism.
• The meeting will culminate in the adoption of the Astana Declaration, emphasizing economic ties and regional security.
