Peace & Security

By R Anil Kumar

• AI literacy is ‘crucial’ for individuals and more regulation is needed

• Companies and governments need to take more responsibility for keeping individuals safe from the potential misuse of artificial intelligence tools, according to AI expert Ivana Bartoletti

• As the global debate over artificial intelligence (AI) and user harm gains momentum – India is going to play a crucial role in shaping responsible AI with the first-of-its-kind data privacy legislation and draft regulation over deepfakes, says Ivana Bartoletti, Global Privacy Officer, Wipro Limited

• IvanaBartoletti is the Global Chief Privacy and AI Governance Officer of multinational IT company Wipro, an advisor to the Council of Europe and co-founder of the Women Leading in AI network

Riyadh, December 30. Ms. Ivana Bartoletti who is also the founder of the ‘Women Leading in AI Network’, said that India has carved out a safe and robust digital data protection bill which is different from the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

Bartoletti said that she is concerned about the lack of representation in the AI industry from women and the global South.

Speaking at the 2024 Internet Governance Forum in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, an annual UN forum for the discussion of critical digital policy issues, Ivana Bartoletti said that “In Europe, just 28 per cent of those working in the AI industry are women, and that has enormous consequence.

Each AI product is made up of elements that are chosen by people. So, not having enough women and diversity in the conversation is problematic. But it’s not just a matter of having more women coders and programmers. It’s also about those who are deciding the future of artificial intelligence, she stated.

The inherent bias of these tools has been a key topic on every panel I’ve been on at the Internet Governance Forum, as well as how to ensure that the global South has a much stronger voice.

On the advice to women and girls interested in working in this field, Ivana Bartoletti said that “There are many ways to get into AI and technology, and you don’t have to necessarily be a coder. I was always interested in the politics of data. For example, if we talk about a database, the way data is collected data is not neutral, someone decides what data is included. And, therefore, the predictions made by AI about us are not neutral,” Bartoletti said.

We need women and people from a wide range of backgrounds to be involved in the governance of AI, the auditing, the investigative journalism, to identify where it is going wrong.

Ivana Bartoletti, the co-founder of the Women Leading in AI network.

We must ensure that AI systems are deployed in a way that is fair and transparent. A lot of collaboration is happening between governments, the private sector, large tech, corporates and civil society. But more is needed, because the necessity for accuracy and transparency may increasingly become a legal requirement, Bartoletti said.

Conversations need to be happening in every country, to ensure that AI does not exacerbate the existing inequalities that we have in society, or make the internet even more unsafe.

In a world where it’s so easy to spread fake videos, images and disinformation, we should ensure that everyone understands how to safely use the technology they’re being exposed to Ivana Bartoletti said and added that education is important and AI literacy are important, including in schools, to develop a critical mindset.

But education cannot replace the responsibility of business, because there is too much asymmetry between us as individuals and the magnitude of data collection and the power of large tech companies.

It’s totally unfair to tell individuals that they are responsible for their online safety. I think that AI literacy is crucial, but we have to be very clear that the responsibility is for the companies that put out the products and the government that regulate their use, Ivana Bartoletti added.