Online games involving betting, user harm, addiction to be banned in India: Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar
Jun 12, 2023
New Delhi [India], June 12 : Union Minister Rajeev Chandrasekhar on Monday said the government has prepared a framework regarding online gaming through which games involving betting, harmful to users, and that can be addictive will be banned in India.
"For the first time, we have prepared a framework regarding online gaming, in that we will not allow three types of games in the country. Games that involve betting or can be harmful to the user and that involve a factor of addiction will be banned in the country," Chandrasekhar told ANI.
Earlier on Friday, the minister said that the government will regulate Artificial Intelligence technology in order to ensure that it doesn't harm 'digital citizens'.
"Our approach towards AI regulation is very simple. We will regulate AI as we regulate Web 3 or any emerging technologies to ensure they do not harm digital citizens," Union Minister of State for Entrepreneurship, Skill Development, Electronics and Technology said at a press conference to highlight the digital initiatives taken by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government so far.
"We will safeguard digital citizens through this technology," he said, adding companies willing to operate in India have to mitigate user harm in the first place.
He also touched upon the concerns about potential job loss from those disruptive and said that AI in its current form is no threat to jobs.
According to him, AI as a technology in its current form is largely task-oriented and not capable of dealing with a situation where logic and reasoning are needed.
"While AI is disruptive we do not see in the next few years the so-called threat of replacing the jobs. Because the current stage of the development of AI is very task-oriented and not reasoning, logic and etc."
"Jobs usually have reasoning and logic and AI is not as sophisticated at this point," the minister had said.
Given India's strong IT industry and a large set of data, AI-based utilities can leverage huge potential in the country. Though AI is still in its early stages. Many countries have been using AI technologies for better service delivery and to reduce human intervention but fears of job cuts remain as the technology evolves.
