Inspired by the federal government’s stance, right-wing commentators are fast to painting India’s Hindu majority as underneath fixed menace and discrimination. 

“The commentators are doing their job, which is to stoke communal issues within the nation underneath any pretext, irrespective of how foolish,” says Hartosh Singh Bal, govt editor at The Caravan, a politics and tradition journal. “Not solely is the federal government pushing the narrative, however these commentators are additionally creating their very own atmosphere round them … They feed off such controversies as a result of it retains them related and provides them a sure prominence.”

“The discourse in India is unhinged,” says Aakar Patel, a journalist and former head of Amnesty Worldwide’s India bureau, including that there is no such thing as a logic round what will get sucked into the tradition warfare.

To date, there have been no official calls to ban ChatGPT, and the federal government hasn’t weighed in on the controversy, however corporations that get caught up in these political firestorms face fallout, which is making some potential customers nervous.

“A majority of my consumers are Hindu. I don’t know their love or hate for science, however I received’t threat offending them with a controversial software program,” says Zaid, a Delhi-based entrepreneur who requested to be recognized by his first title solely to keep away from a backlash from clients. He added that he “completely received’t put something like ChatGPT for his on-line enterprise.”

In 2020, a jewelery firm referred to as Tanishq grew to become the main focus of a web based protest marketing campaign after releasing an advert depicting a mixed-faith household. Radical Hindu teams referred to as for a boycott, and the corporate pulled the advert. In 2021, clothes and life-style firm Fabindia promoted a variety of clothes for the Hindu competition Diwali utilizing an Urdu phrase (a language primarily related to Muslims in India and Pakistan). Inside hours, #boycottFabindia was trending on Twitter. The model caved, eliminated the advert, and renamed the clothes line.

In Could 2021, Unacademy, considered one of India’s largest edtech platforms, was pressured to apologize after a query on considered one of its examination papers sparked a backlash from Hindu nationalist teams. Six months later, a video of a pupil performing a skit based mostly on the Hindu epic Ramayana at a company-sponsored occasion went viral, and right-wing teams accused the platform of insulting the faith. #AntiHinduUnacademy trended on Twitter.

In 2016, ecommerce firm Myntra was attacked for trivializing Hindu tradition after a meme that mixed a scene from the epic Mahabharata with the corporate’s model circulated on social media. Each the meme and the controversy had been revived in 2021. The corporate maintained it had nothing to do with the picture, however #BoycottMyntra and #UninstallMyntra trended nonetheless.

Tech business figures mentioned they hope that the controversy received’t preserve folks in India from experimenting with generative AI, which they are saying has large potential throughout a number of sectors. 

“You may’t blame AI for this,” Raviisutanjani Kumar, an govt at edtech startup Testbook, instructed WIRED. Testbrook is already utilizing generative AI in its enterprise.

Nonetheless, some within the tech sector say the controversy over ChatGPT has given them pause. Talking on situation of anonymity, a supervisor at edtech platform PhysicsWallah, which has a market valuation of over a billion {dollars}, mentioned the corporate is prone to avoid ChatGPT, at the least till the storm blows over. “We might ideally keep away,” they mentioned. “But when the enterprise potential is excessive, we might wait out for the controversy to die after which deploy it.” 

A senior supervisor at TradeIndia who additionally requested anonymity was extra pragmatic, stating that they’re already utilizing ChatGPT extensively to put in writing web site content material for enterprise purchasers. “Look, on the finish of the day, it’s about prices,” they mentioned. “If ChatGPT may help lower your expenses on author salaries and yields desired outcomes, controversies received’t matter.” 

Gupta says tech corporations that wish to function in India must be prepared for future controversies. These grievances are being spun for political acquire and to win over highly effective conservative and non secular constituencies, he says, and the federal government has proven little signal that it’s prepared to dial again its rhetoric for the sake of the enterprise atmosphere.

“Firms should even have a course of in place to cope with on-line boycotts or any kind of allegations that come up,” Gupta says. “However [they] must do numerous firefighting as a result of all these incidents will proceed to happen.”