This article is sourced from UNESCO’s documentation of “Ethics of AI”
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.
UNESCO’s work on AI ethics and governance stems from the Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, which was adopted by 193 countries in 2021.
The Recommendation mandated UNESCO to produce tools to assist Member States, including the Readiness Assessment Methodology, a tool for governments to build a comprehensive picture of how prepared they are to implement AI ethically and responsibly for all their citizens.
The protection of human rights and dignity is the cornerstone of the Recommendation, based on the advancement of fundamental principles such as transparency and fairness, always remembering the importance of human oversight of AI systems.
Core Values:
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.
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-Discrimination
AI actors should promote social justice, fairness, and non-discrimination while taking an inclusive approach to ensure AI’s benefits are accessible to all.
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.
Recommendation’s eleven key areas of policy actions:
[Information of actionable policies sourced from GPT-4.0]
– Ethical Frameworks: Establishing ethical guidelines to ensure AI technologies are developed and used in ways that respect human rights, dignity, and privacy.
– Inclusivity and Diversity: Promoting the development of AI systems that are inclusive and consider diverse cultural, social, and economic contexts to prevent biases and discrimination.
– Transparency and Accountability: Ensuring AI systems are transparent in their operations and decision-making processes, with clear accountability mechanisms for their outcomes.
– Data Privacy and Protection: Implementing robust data protection measures to safeguard personal information and ensure individuals’ privacy rights are respected.
– Education and Capacity Building: Enhancing education and training programs to build AI literacy and skills across different sectors and communities.
– Regulatory Frameworks: Developing comprehensive regulatory frameworks that address the legal and ethical challenges posed by AI technologies.
– International Cooperation: Fostering international collaboration to address global challenges related to AI and to harmonize standards and practices.
– Sustainability and Environmental Impact: Encouraging the development of AI solutions that contribute to environmental sustainability and address climate change.
– Human Oversight and Control: Ensuring human oversight in AI systems to maintain control over automated processes.
– Research and Development: Promoting research to advance AI technologies responsibly and ethically.
– Economic and Social Impact: Assessing and addressing the economic and social implications of AI deployment.
There is still a long way to go, but AI policies are coming into place and the world is slowly changing for the better. Keep hope and keep fighting the good fight.
About the blog
This is going to be the place where I experiment sharing about “A Human’s Guide to Detecting AI-Generated Toasts” and see how things go. If it works out, this will be the perfect archive for anyone who wants to learn about how to detect AI content, that is written by actual humans. I’m not against the use of AI in ethical ways, I’m against it stealing our creativity and jest. Besides, who else could come up with a joke about being a hallway menace except a human who hasn’t had sleep in three days?
Want to contribute?
“A Human’s Guide to Detecting AI-Generated Toasts” is going to be a guidebook and while the notion of a guidebook is that it should be boring and technical, me (and the amazing future authors) who will contribute to this blog are going to make it full of glitter and sass.
This is a guidebook like never before! ✨
All you have to do is read the guidelines here. After you’ve read the guidelines, you could either apply from there, or you can find the link for google form here.
Feedback
I’m always looking for feedback and requests, so you can always comment or fill out this form anonymously here.