India’s Minister of State for Electronics & IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar yesterday 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 news agency 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 regulations is very simple. We will regulate AI as we regulate Web 3 or any emerging technologies to ensure they do not harm digital citizens,” the Minister 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,”
he 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.

Earlier, as Indianbroadcastingworld.com has reported several times, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting too had issued advisories warning print media and TV channels from airing advertisements related to several categories of online games that involved betting and could be addictive and harmful to users and subscribers.