Ethics of Artificial Intelligence

The Recommendation

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.

AI - Artificial intelligence

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.

 

Artificial intelligence plays a role in billions of people’s lives

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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.

Artificial intelligence plays a role in billions of people’s lives

In no other field is the ethical compass more relevant than in artificial intelligence. These general-purpose technologies are re-shaping the way we work, interact, and live. The world is set to change at a pace not seen since the deployment of the printing press six centuries ago. AI technology brings major benefits in many areas, but without the ethical guardrails, it risks reproducing real world biases and discrimination, fueling divisions and threatening fundamental human rights and freedoms.

Gabriela Ramos
Gabriela RamosAssistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences of UNESCO
Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence - Key facts

Four core values

Central to the Recommendation are four core values which lay the foundations for AI systems that work for the good of humanity, individuals, societies and the environment:
1
Human rights and human dignity

Respect, protection and promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms and human dignity

2
Living in peaceful

just, and interconnected societies

3
Ensuring diversity and inclusiveness
4
Environment and ecosystem flourishing

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

Ten core principles lay out a human-rights centred approach to the Ethics of AI.
1. Proportionality and Do No Harm

The use of AI systems must not go beyond what is necessary to achieve a legitimate aim. Risk assessment should be used to prevent harms which may result from such uses.

2. Safety and Security

Unwanted harms (safety risks) as well as vulnerabilities to attack (security risks) should be avoided and addressed by AI actors.

3. Right to Privacy and Data Protection

Privacy must be protected and promoted throughout the AI lifecycle. Adequate data protection frameworks should also be established.

4. Multi-stakeholder and Adaptive Governance & Collaboration

International law & national sovereignty must be respected in the use of data. Additionally, participation of diverse stakeholders is necessary for inclusive approaches to AI governance.

5. Responsibility and Accountability

AI systems should be auditable and traceable. There should be oversight, impact assessment, audit and due diligence mechanisms in place to avoid conflicts with human rights norms and threats to environmental wellbeing.

6. Transparency and Explainability

The ethical deployment of AI systems depends on their transparency & explainability (T&E). The level of T&E should be appropriate to the context, as there may be tensions between T&E and other principles such as privacy, safety and security.

7. Human Oversight and Determination

Member States should ensure that AI systems do not displace ultimate human responsibility and accountability.

8. Sustainability

AI technologies should be assessed against their impacts on ‘sustainability’, understood as a set of constantly evolving goals including those set out in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

9. Awareness & Literacy

Public understanding of AI and data should be promoted through open & accessible education, civic engagement, digital skills & AI ethics training, media & information literacy.

10. Fairness and Non-Discrimation

AI actors should promote social justice, fairness, and non-discrimination while taking an inclusive approach to ensure AI’s benefits are accessible to all.

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.

Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence - 11 Key policy areas

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.

AI for Women

Ibero-American Business Council for Ethics of AI

The Ibero-American Business Council for Ethics of AI is a collaborative initiative between UNESCO and companies operating in Latin America that are involved in the development or use of artificial intelligence (AI) in various sectors.

The Council serves as a platform for companies to come together, exchange experiences, and promote ethical practices within the AI industry. By working closely with UNESCO, it aims to ensure that AI is developed and utilized in a manner that respects human rights and upholds ethical standards.

Currently co-chaired by Microsoft and Telefonica, the Council is committed to strengthening technical capacities in ethics and AI, designing and implementing the Ethical Impact Assessment tool mandated by the Recommendation on the Ethics of AI, and contributing to the development of intelligent regional regulations. Through these efforts, it strives to create a competitive environment that benefits all stakeholders in Latin America and promotes the responsible and ethical use of AI.

Artificial Intelligence

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.

Infographic on artificial intelligence

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.

Ethics of artificial intelligence

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.

AI - Artificial intelligence