Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
With its unique mandate, UNESCO has led the international effort to ensure that science and technology develop with strong ethical guardrails for decades.
Be it on genetic research, climate change, or scientific research, UNESCO has delivered global standards to maximize the benefits of the scientific discoveries, while minimizing the downside risks, ensuring they contribute to a more inclusive, sustainable, and peaceful world. It has also identified frontier challenges in areas such as the ethics of neurotechnology, on climate engineering, and the internet of things.
The rapid rise in artificial intelligence (AI) has created many opportunities globally, from facilitating healthcare diagnoses to enabling human connections through social media and creating labour efficiencies through automated tasks.
However, these rapid changes also raise profound ethical concerns. These arise from the potential AI systems have to embed biases, contribute to climate degradation, threaten human rights and more. Such risks associated with AI have already begun to compound on top of existing inequalities, resulting in further harm to already marginalised groups.
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Today, artificial intelligence plays a role in billions of people’s lives. Sometimes unnoticed but often with profound consequences, it transforms our societies and challenges what it means to be human.
AI can provide millions of students with support to complete secondary education, fill an additional 3.3 million jobs, and, more urgently, help us tackle the spread and the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Along with multiple advantages, these technologies also generate downside risks and challenges, derived from malicious use of technology or deepening inequalities and divides.
Four core values
A dynamic understanding of AI
The Recommendation interprets AI broadly as systems with the ability to process data in a way which resembles intelligent behaviour.
This is crucial as the rapid pace of technological change would quickly render any fixed, narrow definition outdated, and make future-proof policies infeasible.
A human rights approach to AI
Actionable policies
Key policy areas make clear arenas where Member States can make strides towards responsible developments in AI
While values and principles are crucial to establishing a basis for any ethical AI framework, recent movements in AI ethics have emphasised the need to move beyond high-level principles and toward practical strategies.
The Recommendation does just this by setting out eleven key areas for policy actions.
Implementing the Recommendation
Women4Ethical AI expert platform to advance gender equality
UNESCO's Women4Ethical AI is a new collaborative platform to support governments and companies’ efforts to ensure that women are represented equally in both the design and deployment of AI. The platform’s members will also contribute to the advancement of all the ethical provisions in the Recommendation on the Ethics of AI.
The platform unites 17 leading female experts from academia, civil society, the private sector and regulatory bodies, from around the world. They will share research and contribute to a repository of good practices. The platform will drive progress on non-discriminatory algorithms and data sources, and incentivize girls, women and under-represented groups to participate in AI.
Ideas, news & stories
Events
OLD Things you need to know about AI
AI has proven its value in confronting the COVID-19 pandemic
It contributes to slowing down the economic impact of the crisis through digital platforms. It also helps researchers crunch huge amounts of data in the race to find a vaccine or treatment. AI has participated to contain the spread of the virus through test, track and trace technologies. Yet, as people are giving access to their data, the use of AI during this pandemic has reopened concerns regarding privacy, data protection and the use of data beyond the needs of virus-tracking.
AI-driven growth is likely to be highly unequal
AI is expected to generate nearly US$ 4 trillion in added value by 2022. By 2030, economic gains are expected to be strongest in China and North America, representing 70 % of AI’s global economic impact. AI has a “winner takes it all” dynamic that needs to be regulated: concentration of AI in the hands of few high-income countries will likely leave developing countries far behind. The latter will not benefit or very little from AI technologies and will lack ownership of such technologies.
Examples of ethical dilemmas
Discover our resources
OLD How to build the rule of law in the digital world?
In this video, Gabriela Ramos, Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences for UNESCO, explains how new technologies transform the world and our daily lives, in previously unimaginable ways. The global pandemic has further accelerated the application of AI technology: from tracking and tracing apps to digital platforms to ensure the continuity of teaching and learning for millions of students. To what extent can AI be trusted? Who must be held responsible if an algorithm discriminates or shows bias? How can we ensure that the economic benefits of AI are justly distributed, rather than amplifying the growing social inequality? UNESCO is at the forefront of the largest dialogue between governments, civil society, and the private sector to build a solid base for the rule of law in the digital world.
OLD Evolution of the Recommendation
OLD Intergovernmental Process and Negotiations
The preliminary report and the first draft of the Recommendation were transmitted to Member States in September 2020, for their written comments by 31 December 2020. These written comments were taken into consideration by the Director-General when preparing her final report on the Recommendation.
The final report containing a draft text for the Recommendation was communicated to Member States and submitted to a Special committee of governmental experts (Category II). The special committee meeting was held in two phases, the first from 26 to 30 April 2021 and the second from 21 to 25 June 2021. Intersessional consultations were also organized in the period from 1 to 18 June 2021 (12 days).
After months of constructive dialogue and negotiation, representatives from UNESCO’s member states have agreed on the draft text of an ambitious and wide-ranging new template for the ethical development and deployment of Artificial Intelligence.
- Read the draft text, also available in French
- More information on the Intergovernmental Negotiations