Nanditesh Nilay's column: Our laws are not keeping pace with the fast pace of AI

There have been a few recent incidents that have brought the debate back into the spotlight as to whether morality and law can be kept separate in the decision-making process or are they complementary to each other? Models from AI company Anthropic can be used to fire weapons autonomously. However, Anthropic believes that this should not be done and its use in war should be avoided. On the other hand, the Pentagon — which gave the AI company a contract to work on the data — believes that this should be done and those models should be used in war. When Anthropic opposed this decision and did not listen to Trump, he was ostracized. He was also threatened with being put in the category of a threat to national security like Chinese tech giant Huawei. Trump later argued that it was the law that would dictate how the U.S. would fight wars, not the moral principles of a company. That is, the law can easily neglect business ethics in its decision-making process. But after all, the law also protects the interests of the last citizen of the society and its nature is bound by morality. Here in India, the High Court said in one of its judgments that morality and law have to be kept separate. The court held that if no offence is made under the law, then the court's decisions regarding the rights of citizens will not be affected by morality or social consent. But is there any law different from morality? If law is the process of establishing the values of justice, how can morality be kept separate from it? Today, ethical issues related to data are among the world's major concerns. The laws of any country are meant to protect the data privacy of the common citizen. But with the rapid rise of AI, methods of collecting data on a large scale, frequent breaches, regulatory sharing and increasing trust of people, this concern is increasing. Data is the main source of decision-making in the age of AI, but its use has often clashed with basic rights such as privacy, autonomy, impartiality, and non-discrimination, further deepening the question of the separation of morality and law. Today, if you type anything in your phone's web browser or an app, the next moment that data creates a long chain of information on your screen. You think that what you are thinking, the technology is also looking for. But companies often collect personal data without any information or consent, including location, browsing history, biometrics, voice, emotions, social connections. Is it right on the basis of law or morality? One of the ethical aspects of the anthropic phenomenon is that it is the lawmakers who decide how much and how much technology will be developed or disseminated. But it seems like the law is still far behind the rapid pace of development of AI. Therefore, in any democracy, until the voters take a decision on this matter, the responsibility of morality has to be taken by both the lawmakers and those who use them. Whether it's an anthropic case or a data-related ethical issue, the law as well as the "moral-compass" must be at the heart of decisions that affect the entire human society. (These are the author's own views)