As AI systems proliferate in consumer facing applications, questions about liability for AI related harms remain unresolved. This working paper examines whether India's Consumer Protection Act, 2019, adequately addresses harm caused by defective AI products and services, and whether it proportionately allocates liability across the AI value chain. The Act's broad definitions of product liability, harm, and deficiency appear technology agnostic and potentially applicable to AI related incidents including personal injury, psychological harm, biased outputs, and loss of control. However, significant gaps remain. Proving causation between AI defects and consumer harm presents a technical challenge, as AI failures often stem from design choices rather than discrete defects. Additionally, the Act's framework assumes distinct roles for manufacturers, sellers, and service providers, yet the AI value chain involves overlapping responsibilities among data providers, model developers, deployers, and users that do not neatly map to these categories. Current liability frameworks lack proportionate mechanisms to effectively address complex, multistakeholder AI harms. While the Act may cover AI entities, enforcement requires clarification on sector specific overlaps.
This position paper argues that AI leaderboards are structurally ill-suited to serving the Global South because they lack independent governance, conflict-of-interest policies, and mechanisms for metric evolution. The barrier is not missing data; high-quality regional benchmarks already exist: IndicSUPERB, MILU, and LAHAJA for India; IrokoBench for Africa; AlGhafa for Arabic. The barrier is institutional design. Global leaderboards do not include these benchmarks, and no governance mechanism compels them to do so. Commercial pressure corrects leaderboard failures when paying customers in the Global North are affected. The Global South lacks equivalent leverage. Without governance, failures affecting Hindi, Swahili, or Arabic speakers persist indefinitely as documented but unaddressed gaps. Using India as a case study (1.4 billion people, 22 scheduled languages, high-quality benchmarks, but no trusted aggregation), we report findings from a consultation with 58 AI practitioners showing consistent preference for formal governance and disclosure-based conflict management. The solution is not more data but better institutions: regional leaderboards with independent governance from the start.
This paper examines the impact of artificial intelligence and digital technologies on the blue-collar gig economy in India, focusing on algorithmic management. This paper examines the impact of artificial intelligence and digital technologies on the blue collar gig economy in India, focusing on algorithmic management he use of automated systems to allocate, monitor, and evaluate work in location-based services such as ride sharing and delivery. Using a social justice framework and a mixed-methods approach comprising interviews with 16 gig workers and 21 key stakeholders, the study uncovers a dual reality: while AI-powered systems expand access to work and generate operational efficiencies, they simultaneously introduce significant challenges related to fairness, transparency, and worker dignity. Key findings reveal that algorithmic systems are opaque by design, produce inequitable outcomes, and are not structured to reward additional labour with proportionate pay. The study advocates for a pragmatic hybrid governance model an Algorithmic Human Manager framework in which technological efficiency and human accountability operate together rather than in opposition. The findings carry implications for policymakers, platform companies, and civil society organizations working to design equitable AI governance frameworks for the gig economy in India and across the Global South.