Hours after Galgotias University was asked to vacate the premises of the India AI Impact Summit expo over the Chinese robodog controversy, the government on Wednesday said that they want genuine and actual work to be reflected at the expos.
The robodog controversy erupted after several social media users shared the image of an ‘Orion’ robotic dog displayed by the university at their stall and compared it with Chinese-made Unitree Go2.
When asked why the university was asked to vacate the premises, S Krishnan, the Secretary of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) said, “The point is, we want genuine and actual work to be reflected in a way that people exhibit in expos. The idea is not to sort of use this as an opportunity in any other fashion. We don’t want controversy around exhibits which are presented here.”
ALSO READ: Explained: ‘Unitree Go2’, The China-Made Robot That Was Behind Galgotias University Getting Kicked Out From AI Summit
Krishnan further stated that it is essential that a set code is followed. “Our intention is, misinformation cannot be encouraged, so we don’t want controversy around exhibits at the expo. I am not getting into whether they are right or wrong. We just don’t want the controversy.”
Meanwhile, Galgotias University also issued a statement and ‘apologise profusely’ for the confusion created at the recent Al Summit.
“One of our representatives, manning the pavilion, was ill-informed. She was not aware of the technical origins of the product and, in her enthusiasm for being on camera, gave factually incorrect information even though she was not authorised to speak to the press,” the university stated.
The university also claimed that there was no institutional intent to misrepresent this innovation.
“Galgotias University remains firmly committed to academic integrity, transparency, and responsible representation of our work. Understanding the organisers’ sentiment, we have vacated the premises.”
Earlier, speaking to PTI, Neha Singh, a professor at University said, “The controversy happened because things may not have been expressed clearly. I take accountability that perhaps I did not communicate properly, as it was done with a lot of energy and enthusiasm and very quickly, so I may not have come across as eloquently as I usually do.”
On Tuesday, the Greater Noida-based institution said that robotic programming is part of our endeavour to make students learn AI programming and develop and deploy real world skills using globally available tools and resources, given developing AI talent is the need of the hour.”
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