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.
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.
Four core values
Respect, protection and promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms and human dignity
just, and interconnected societies
- Ensuring diversity and inclusiveness
- Environment and ecosystem flourishing
A human rights approach to AI
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.
Unwanted harms (safety risks) as well as vulnerabilities to attack (security risks) should be avoided and addressed by AI actors.
Privacy must be protected and promoted throughout the AI lifecycle. Adequate data protection frameworks should also be established.
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.
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.
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.
Member States should ensure that AI systems do not displace ultimate human responsibility and accountability.
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.
Public understanding of AI and data should be promoted through open & accessible education, civic engagement, digital skills & AI ethics training, media & information literacy.
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.
