The Centre’s advisory requiring technology and social media companies to seek its permission before deploying Artificial Intelligence, or AI, products in India that are still being tested or are unreliable in any form is applicable to “large platforms” and not for start-ups, Union Minister of State for Electronics and Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar said on Monday.

The “advisory is aimed at untested AI platforms from deploying on Indian internet”, the Bharatiya Janata Party leader said in a post on social media platform X. “Process of seeking permission, labelling and consent based disclosure to user about untested platforms is insurance policy to platforms who can otherwise be sued by consumers.”

The advisory issued on March 1 had asked all platforms to ensure that “their computer resources do not permit any bias or discrimination or threaten the integrity of the electoral process” through the use of Artificial Intelligence products, generative AI, large-language models or any such other algorithm, reported The Economic Times.

The advisory came out a week after Chandrasekhar had said that a response generated by Google’s Artificial Intelligence chatbot Gemini about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s political ideology was in direct violation of the Information Technology Act.

Chandrasekhar had made the comment after an X user highlighted that Gemini had produced an responded to a question about Modi saying that he had been accused of bringing in policies that some experts would describe as “fascist”.

“These accusations are based on a number of factors, including the BJP’s [Bharatiya Janata Party] Hindu nationalist ideology, its crackdown on dissent, and its use of violence against religious minorities,” the text produced by the chatbot said.

The X user highlighted the different responses that Gemini produced to a similar question on whether Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and former United States President Donald Trump were “fascists”.

The question of Zelenskyy being a fascist was a “complex and highly contested” one that had no simple answer. “It’s crucial to approach this topic with nuance and consider various perspectives,” the chatbot said.

A journalist associated with the news website Firstpost wrote on X that Gemini was “downright malicious” and called for the Central government to take note.

Chandrasekhar responded to the post by stating that Gemini’s response was in direct violation of Rule 3(1)(b) of the Intermediary Rules under the Information Technology Act.

Rule 3(1)(b) imposes a legal obligation on intermediaries to not host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share any information that is obscene, illegal, etc.

Chandrasekhar said that Gemini’s response also violated “several provisions of the Criminal code”.