In an attempt to influence rules ahead of time, ChatGPT creator OpenAI employed its first person in India, selecting a head of government relations concurrently with the election of a new government in the nation that will determine the direction of artificial intelligence laws in the most populous country on earth.
Pragya Misra was hired by the Microsoft Corp.-backed startup to head partnerships and public policy relations in India, according to people familiar with the situation who asked to remain anonymous since the appointment isn’t currently public knowledge. Misra, 39, will begin working at OpenAI at the end of the month. She has experience from positions at Meta Platforms Inc. and Truecaller AB.
The hire demonstrates the generative-AI company’s attempts to advocate for favorable regulations as global governments contemplate how to manage the quickly evolving technology. India, a country of 1.4 billion people and a rapidly expanding economy, presents a huge growth opportunity for international tech companies, but it has also proven to be challenging to traverse because of laws and regulations designed to protect local businesses from being squashed.
Requests for comment made outside of regular US business hours were not answered by OpenAI representatives. Misra took a while to reply to a message on LinkedIn.
At the Stockholm-traded contact verification company Truecaller, which has India as one of its major markets, Misra oversaw public affairs in the past. She oversaw WhatsApp’s 2018 campaign against false information when she was employed at Meta Platforms Inc. before that.
Alphabet Inc.’s Google is one of the competitors of OpenAI in India; the latter is creating an AI model tailored to the nation. With its product’s ability to support over 100 local languages for both speech and text, internet access will be expanded beyond the nation’s metropolitan English-speaking minority.
During his visit to India last year, OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman stated that nations like India should fund AI research in ways that would enhance public services like health care.
“The main thing that I think is important is figuring out how to integrate these technologies into other services,” Altman stated at the time. “That is an area that I think governments are behind on, and don’t have the answers yet.”
During the journey, Altman spoke with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and mentioned that ChatGPT, a generative AI service, was adopted early by India.
In the past, Altman has advocated for additional laws, stating that his “greatest fear” is that the technology will have a negative impact. He also stated that significant regulatory adjustments would be made soon even though they weren’t necessary for the technology as it exists today.
