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What's the article about?
- It talks about how the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India (CAG) can leverage India’s G20 presidency to push two priority areas, the blue economy and responsible artificial intelligence, in the SAI20 Engagement Group.
Relevance:
- GS2: Powers, Functions and Responsibilities of various Constitutional Bodies; Bilateral, Regional and Global Groupings and Agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests; Prelims
What is the SAI20 Engagement Group?
- It is a group of Supreme Audit Institutions of G20 countries.
- The Supreme Audit Institution is the country’s official top audit institute or agency. In India, it is CAG.
- The establishment of SAI20 was initiated by Indonesia during its 2022 G20 Presidency.
- It aims to contribute, among other things, to the transparency and accountability of good governance.
- With India’s assumption of the G20 presidency on December 1, 2022, CAG of India, i.e., SAI India shall take the chairmanship of SAI20.
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Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG):
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Promoting Blue Economy:
- Blue economy is an economic system that encompasses a spectrum of policy and operational dimensions aimed at conserving marine and freshwater environments while promoting their sustainable use, producing food and energy, supporting livelihoods, and acting as a driver for economic advancement and welfare.
- Blue economy takes forward the concept of Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE), introduced by India at the COP26 Glasgow summit, which emphasises the need for ‘mindful and deliberate utilisation’ to sustain and revitalise marine and freshwater environments.
- As a priority area, it serves to bring the focus of SAIs to particularly (but not exclusively) SDG 14, viz. Life Below Water.
Promoting responsible AI:
- Artificial intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems.
- While the application of AI continues to encompass more and more areas of our lives, it poses challenges of complexity to both governments as well as SAIs in its understanding, regulation, and auditability to ensure its responsible use.
- As with the blue economy, the problems related to responsible AI are topical, multidimensional, and interdependent.
- The concerns span issues of legality, ethicality, and the philosophical choices of human versus non-human agency.
- Apart from concerns of privacy, AI poses issues of biases and discrimination on account of the lack of comprehensibility of the algorithms to the common man, as the systems progressively auto-evolve.
Way Forward:
- Taking forward the highly pertinent priority areas, as the chair of SAI20, C&AG of India intends to undertake strong, successful, and widely participative collaboration of G20 SAIs for an efficacious and unmatched G20 presidency.
