A Precarious Normative Balance or the “Third Way”? Sociotechnical Imaginaries in India’s AI Governance

Abstract

India’s AI Governance Guidelines (AIGG) promise a balanced approach, offering an Indian “third way” (ITW) to transcend the perceived extremes of the US model of non-intervention and EU and China’s approach to precautionary prescriptions in national AI Governance frameworks. However, a critical reading of the document and the discourse on the ITW begs the question of whether this is an alternate normative framework or a patchwork policy paradigm. Drawing from Sheila Jasanoff and Sang Hun Kim (2015)’s notion of sociotechnical imaginaries for critical discourse analysis, this paper argues that the imaginaries within AIGG reveal the proposed ITW is not an alternative policy paradigm. Identifying the interlocking imaginaries underpinning AIGG, we argue that these mutually reinforce each other to shape the normative elements of the governance framework and tip the scales towards innovation. While its motivating rationale represents a distinct vision of welfare, development and sovereignty, its governance structure centers around technocratic arrangements and deferred regulation. We conclude that the ITW discourse is not a genuine alternative due to the discontinuity between its motivating rationale and governance structure. It fails to outline the normative scaffolding or regulatory affordance that behoves a coherent framework that aspires to provide a ITW.