Artificial Intelligence and the Information Technology Act, 2000: A Critical Analysis of Legislative Gaps and Regulatory Challenges

Abstract

The unprecedented developments in artificial intelligence have caused disruptions in almost every sector of the economy. Today, we can see AI taking over the traditional way of doing day-to-day activities, from self-driving vehicles to writing scholarly research papers. The developments in AI have increased the number of AI incidents all over the world involving human rights issues. This has created an opportunity for an intersection between AI and law. The intersection involves the deployment and development of AI with regulatory and human rights issues. The world has responded to such issues by holding discussions and conferences on AI and bringing appropriate regulatory mechanisms where necessary. The European Union AI Act is one such response to comprehensively deal with the issues involved with AI. The government of India has tasked NITI Aayog with holistically researching AI in India, including reviewing the existing legislative framework. The NITI Aayog has released the national strategy for AI, which recommends not bringing a stand-alone legislation for AI. It made a taskforce to find legislative gaps in the current legislative framework for proposing amendments to the current legislative framework. The Information Technology Act, 2000 (hereinafter, the IT Act), is one such piece of legislation which governs electronic communication and commerce. But the IT Act lacks provisions that could effectively govern the issues of AI. Therefore, it is imperative to critically analyse the legislative gaps in the IT Act to effectively deal with the AI systems.