IIT Madras establishes CeRAI to promote ethical, responsible use of AI

The Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) has established a Centre for Responsible Artificial Intelligence (CeRAI) to promote the ethical and responsible development of artificial intelligence (AI)-based solutions. Google has contributed $1 million to the centre.

The centre was inaugurated on April 27 and conducted its first workshop on Monday.

"To help build a foundation of fairness, interpretability, privacy, and security, we are supporting the establishment of a first-of-its-kind multidisciplinary Center for Responsible AI with a grant of $1 million to the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras," said Sanjay Gupta, country head and vice president (India), Google.

The primary objective of CeRAI will be to produce high-quality research outputs, such as publishing research articles in high-impact journals/conferences, white papers, and patents, among others. It will work towards creating technical resources such as curated datasets (universal as well as India-specific), software, toolkits, etc, in the domain of responsible AI.

The centre will also provide sector-specific recommendations and guidelines for policymakers related to generative AI. It will also conduct training and sensitisation programmes for the ethical and responsible use of generative AI.

"It is very important that those at the policymaking level and those who are working at the cutting-edge of developing technologies are aware of the risks and challenges that remain while we are using the same technologies for solving societal problems, ensuring access to healthcare, making healthcare more affordable and making education more inclusive and making agriculture more productive. There is a need for a non-biased and non-discriminatory AI framework as we have unique requirements that require customization as per our requirements," said Abhishek Singh, managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO) of Digital India Corporation.  

In the initiative, CeRAI will engage with Nasscom, Vidhi Legal, and CMC Vellore among others.