IPS officer stresses need to understand risks of AI, evolve counter-measures

IPS officer Brijesh Singh warns of potential risks of AI, urging open information sharing and proactive defences to ensure trustworthiness. He highlights law enforcement's role in mitigating harms, such as new reporting frameworks and cross-industry task forces. ISB Institute of Data Science organised the talk at Hyderabad campus, attended by students and faculty.

Failure to adequately understand and address new risks of Artificial Intelligence (AI) could undermine responsible development and public trust, a senior official of the Maharashtra government said while speaking on the topic ‘Generative AI: Risks and Countermeasures’ at the Indian School of Business (ISB) here.

“Criminals may weaponise these flexible systems... posing threats from dissemination of state-sponsored disinformation to sophisticated economic interference and identity theft at scale. Their abilities to learn from and generate novel output based on immense datasets magnify both the promise and vulnerabilities,” said IPS officer Brijesh Singh, Principal Secretary to Maharashtra Chief Minister’s Office.

Seeking to underscore the need for preparedness, he said, “Just as AI progresses unevenly across domains and usage, our defences must adapt through open information sharing between groups on the forefront. By addressing socio-technical issues systematically and proactively, we can steer these powerful technologies toward meeting human needs in a trustworthy manner,” he said in the talk organised on Wednesday by the ISB Institute of Data Science at the B-school’s Hyderabad campus.

Law enforcement has a pivotal role in mitigating harms “whether through new reporting frameworks that raise awareness of critical incidents or cross-industry task forces targeting the root sources of online criminal activities,” he said. Students and faculty members attended the programme, ISB said in a release on Thursday.