A United Nations panel has warned that brain chip technology being pioneered by Elon Musk could be abused for'neurosurveillance' violating'mental privacy,' or'even to implement forms of forced re-education,' threatening human rights worldwide. The UN's agency for science and culture (UNESCO) said neurotechnology like Musk's Neuralink, if left unregulated, will lead to'new possibilities of monitoring and manipulating the human mind through neuroimaging' and'personality-altering' tech. UNESCO is now strategizing on a worldwide'ethical framework' to protect humanity from the potential abuses of the technology -- which they fear will be accelerated by advances in AI. 'We are on a path to a world in which algorithms will enable us to decode people's mental processes,' said UNESCO's assistant director-general for social and human sciences, Gabriela Ramos. The implications are'far-reaching and potentially harmful,' Ramos said, given breakthroughs in neurotechnology that could'directly manipulate the brain mechanisms' in humans, 'underlying their intentions, emotions and decisions.' The committee's warnings come less than two months after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gave Elon Musk's brain-chip implant company Neuralink federal approval to conduct trials on humans.

Under the theme "Ensuring AI as a Common Good to Transform Education", the 2021 International Forum on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Education convened policy-makers and practitioners from around the world on 7 and 8 December 2021. The goal was to share knowledge on how governance can be aligned to direct AI towards the common good for education and humanity, and how countries are leveraging AI to deliver the unfulfilled promises and enable the futures of learning. The Forum was co-organized by UNESCO and China with the support of the Inter-UN-Agency Working Group on Artificial Intelligence. It convened approximately 74 speakers including 17 Ministers or Vice Ministers, from UN agencies, international organizations and more than 40 countries around the world. During the two-day event, the Forum attracted more than 9,000 real-time participants and viewers from more than 100 countries.

They include Russia, China and Iran. The signatories are obliged to bring in laws dictating how AI may and may not be used. The agreement aims to remove discrimination from AI and limit mass surveillance of people going about their daily business. But there are no sanctions for rule-breakers. One could, therefore, reasonably argue that the agreement allows countries to look as if they are signing up to a worthy cause whilst in practice they do not change anything.