Hon’ble Deputy Chairman Harivansh delivered a speech at the plenary session of the 86th All India Presiding Officers Conference (AIPOC) in Lucknow on Tuesday. In his address to Presiding Officers from various states, he emphasized the role of AI in making legislatures more efficient but laid out various steps required to make the technology accurate and reliable.Alongside laying out various practical cases and ways to implement AI in Parliament, he called for more synergy between State Legislatues and the Parliament. This would ensure that the institutional knowledge of legislatures can be used effectively for both, the Parliament as well as the State Legislatures.

Underlining a vision for harmonious coordination and access to information on policies he said, “Legislatures are custodians of all official policy documents including various debates on legislation, budgets etc. These documents are part of the House when they are laid on the table. This information is often scattered across ministries. Parliaments and State legislatures can utilise AI to create a platform to make them accessible easily to all. This would promote the institution as a knowledge hub.  Further he highlighted the need for a ‘Data Lake’ where the unique language of legislative debates, vocabulary; and the documents across the country can be used to train the technology best suited for Indian context.

Harivansh called for a hybrid mechanism where humans still retain oversight over the training and nature of output given by AI. “What makes AI suitable for parliamentary use is not merely its algorithmic capability. It is the knowledge on which the technology is trained. Parliamentary AI must therefore be trained within Parliament, fed with carefully curated parliamentary data. Skills can be acquired, transferred, or outsourced. Knowledge, however, is contextual and deeply embedded within the institution. Parliamentary knowledge is unique. It is built over decades through debates, rulings, conventions, and constitutional practices,” he emphasized.

In his address he explained how Parliament has been testing AI-enabled transcription, simultaneous interpretation to provide services in different languages. At present, Members of Parliament can access the House Business and other administrative documents in a language of their choice. This has been executed using AI. Further, the Deputy Chairman explained how routine administrative tasks such scrutiny of admissibility of Questions for Question Hour, searching past precedents and rulings can be executed using AI. He also called for more awareness and orientation sessions for the staff as well as legislators to execute their respective roles efficiently.

Apart from use of digital tools, subjects on strengthening accountability and capacity building of legislators were also discussed. The Conference commenced on January 19 in presence of Hon’ble Governor. Smt. Anandiben Patel and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla.

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RK