Unesco launches global consultation on AI ethics

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) has launched a global online consultation on the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI), which will be used by the organisation's international group of AI experts to help draft a framework governing how the technology is applied globally. The multidisciplinary unit of 24 AI specialists, known as the Ad Hoc Expert Group (AHEG), was formed in March 2020, and has been tasked with producing a draft Unesco recommendation that takes into account the wide-ranging impacts of AI, including on the environment, labour markets and culture. The first draft text of its recommendation was published on 15 May 2020, which Unesco is now inviting the public to comment on until 31 July 2020. It outlined 11 principles for the "research, design, development, deployment and use of AI systems", including fairness, responsibility and accountability, human oversight and determination, sustainability, mutli-stakeholder and adaptive governance, and privacy, among others. The text also outlined six values that would provide the foundation for these principles, which are human dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms, leaving no one behind, living in harmony, trustworthiness, and protection of the environment. "It is crucial that as many people as possible take part in this consultation, so that voices from around the world can be heard during the drafting process for the first global normative instrument on the ethics of AI," said Audrey Azoulay, director-general of Unesco.