Kriti Sanon walked into the NDTV World Summit 2026 with a warning that felt less like a keynote and more like a plea for help. While the tech industry is busy celebrating the speed of modern innovation, the actress argued that we are drifting into uncharted territory without a safety net. Her central argument was blunt: technology is a sharp tool, and without a handle, it cuts the person holding it.
"AI scares me," she admitted to the audience. "I think it scares a lot of people. But I feel it is a tool, not a destination. The thing is, it is a very sharp tool, and the sharper the tool, the more dangerous it can be." She wasn't anti-tech. She made that clear. She is all for innovation. But she believes the legal framework is lagging dangerously behind, leaving individuals vulnerable to digital manipulation that looks indistinguishable from reality.
The most striking part of her talk wasn't the general fear—it was the bureaucratic failure she identified. She pointed out that on major platforms like Instagram, there is no specific reporting category for AI misuse. If a deepfake or a hyper-realistic AI image of her appears online, she cannot simply flag it as such. There is no button that says, 'This is an AI-generated image of me, and hence it should be reported and removed.' For a star whose image is her primary asset, this silence from the platforms is deafening.
Sanon noted that the line between a real photograph and an AI creation is now "very thin." This blurring isn't just a technical issue; it's a rights issue. She urged that laws must evolve alongside the code, suggesting that the current digital landscape is "damn scary" because we are not prepared for the scale of misuse. The industry isn't just watching; it's waiting for regulations that haven't been written yet.