Government assesses potential risks from AI models

NEW DELHI: Government has started to assess potential risks from advanced artificial intelligence (AI) models, such as Anthropic’s Mythos, with finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw chairing a high-level meeting on Thursday with banks and regulators to review emerging threats from AI models.

The meeting was attended by senior officials from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) and CEOs of various commercial banks. Officials discussed the possibility of misuse of such AI tools to exploit software vulnerabilities and financial systems.

Sitharaman said the nature of the threat from new AI models is “unprecedented” and requires greater preparedness and coordination across financial institutions. The Indian Banks’ Association was advised to create a coordinated response mechanism for AI-related threats.

She also recommended that banks strengthen cybersecurity systems, engage specialised agencies and ensure real-time sharing of threat intelligence among themselves. Banks were also directed to report any cyber incidents immediately to authorities, such as CERT-In.

According to Anthropic, its Claude Mythos model, being tested and only available to companies like Amazon Web Services, Apple, Microsoft and Google and others, can independently identify and exploit software weaknesses, including previously unknown vulnerabilities in operating systems and web browsers, raising concerns over potential misuse.

Department of Financial Services secretary M Nagaraju said the technology presents both risks and opportunities. “Mythos is a threat and opportunity for the fintech ecosystem to experiment,” he said, adding that AI can improve credit access using alternative data, such as digital transactions, GST records and telecom data, but also poses risks related to cybersecurity and data privacy.
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