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A Receivability Framework for Regulating Artificial Intelligence in Pakistan

A Receivability Framework for Regulating Artificial Intelligence in Pakistan

It is believed that legislation is an inferior technology to technology. Artificial intelligence is shaping our decisions on credit, employment, policing and adjudication in Pakistan. No statute governs it. The dominant view treats this silence as a vacuum that only foreign regulation can fill. This article challenges that view. It argues that the Constitution of Pakistan 1973 already contains the substantive norms needed to govern artificial intelligence, and that what is missing is statutory and institutional machinery. Pakistan’s AI regulation is doctrinally coherent at the constitutional level, doctrinally inadequate at the statutory level, doctrinally incomplete at the data protection level, and doctrinally aspirational at the policy and proposed legislation level. Using a doctrinal-comparative method disciplined by a receivability rule, the article tests the European, Chinese, British and American models element by element. It offers a four-limb statutory definition and a constitutionally filtered hybrid framework for Pakistan.

1. Introduction and Problem Statement

In Pakistan, algorithmic systems are being implemented faster than laws are being developed in reference to them. Public agencies and businesses are beginning to employ automized systems to evaluate, categorize, and forecast. The legal system, which receives these systems, was based on the fact that human being used to be the decision maker. For instance, the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act 2016 punishes unauthorized access, forgery, and fraudulent actions.[1] Any of these crimes presupposes human source of mistakes. If the system acted in a discriminatory way or misled someone unintentionally, then offense will not be applicable in this case. The amendment of 2025 has contributed to broadened executive control over internet content but has not impacted algorithmic decision-making.[2] The adoption of the Personal Data Protection Bill 2023 will mean that in order to use citizen’s data, the consent of the owner of that data and determination of its purpose will be needed. However, this bill does not imply any regulation similar to Article 22 of GDPR or the right to initiate a human assessment of automated decision-making.[3]  The only legislative effort to date is the Regulation of Artificial Intelligence Bill 2024, which fails to define key elements of the AI. This problem has not been clarified in the literature. Comparative scholarships examine each foreign model in its own constitutional context. Domestic writing lists issues of privacy, bias and accountability, but does not develop instruments which can be applied by a court. This is not a problem that has been addressed in the literature. Comparative........

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