Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications continue to expand opportunities for humankind’s progress and to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. UNESCO is working to harness these opportunities in its fields of competence and has been leading reflections around pressing concerns related to AI’s rapid development, from a Human Rights and ethics perspective. These range from AI’s role in the futures of education to the omnipresent challenges of disinformation and hate speech online.

In this context, UNESCO publishes the results of a survey intended to establish the priorities and capacity building needs of African countries concerning AI. The potential benefits and risks of the technology are not equally distributed across regions of the world. In 2019, as part of UNESCO’s reflections on AI in Africa, the publication Steering AI and Advanced ICTs for Knowledge Societies highlighted that there is a significant gap in terms of access to knowledge, data, education, training and human resources required for the development and use of AI on the continent.

The key findings of the survey in Africa are:

• Policy initiatives for AI governance need strengthening
• Legal and regulatory frameworks for AI governance need to be fostered
• Need for enhancing capacities for AI Governance is widely recognized
• AI priorities for countries in Africa are varied but offer an opportunity for cooperation. These priorities include the need for attention to:
  • Personal data protection and data governance
  • Leveraging AI for economic growth, development and digital transformation
  • Updating education, skills and training systems
  • Facilitating AI research and development
• The survey calls for steps to address:
  • Ethical implications of AI systems:
  • Implications of AI for cultural diversity
  • Gender biases in the development and use of AI systems

The 32 Member States in Africa who responded to the survey have underlined the importance of UNESCO’s work concerning AI in the fields of education, sciences, culture and communication and information.  They requested UNESCO’s support for standard-setting, policy advise, capacity building, network development and for addressing gender equality related concerns in the development and use of AI.

As UNESCO develops its programmes to support the Member States to harness the potential of innovation and the digital transformation, it invites international, regional and national development partners to join hands with UNESCO in addressing the challenges and leveraging the opportunities for the development and use of AI in Africa as highlighted in this report.

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UNESCOs Member States have announced there has been ‘major progress’ in the development of a global normative instrument for the ethics of artificial intelligence (AI).

In November 2019, the United Nations secretary-general Antonio Guterres congratulated the organisation for taking up this challenge, declaring that AI is a critical frontier issue for the whole UN system and the whole world.

In March this year, UNESCO asked 24 experts with multidisciplinary experience in the ethics of artificial intelligence to develop a draft recommendation on the ethics of AI.

UNESCO then launched a wide process of consultations to obtain the many points of view of stakeholders.

This involved experts from 155 countries, members of the public (through a global online survey), United Nations agencies, major stakeholders from the sector such as Google, Facebook and Microsoft, and the world of academe with the University of Stanford and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

The resulting draft recommendation was submitted last week to UNESCOs 193 Member States. Negotiations will take place ahead of its planned final adoption by Member States at the organisation’s General Conference in November 2021.

According to a statement, the draft recommendation submitted to the international community establishes a number of overarching concepts. This includes the following.

Proportionality: AI technologies must not exceed what is necessary to achieve legitimate aims or objectives, and should be appropriate to the context.

Human oversight and determination: humans are ethically and legally responsible for all stages in the life-cycle of AI systems.

Stewardship of the environment and peace: throughout their lifecycle, AI systems must contribute to the peaceful interconnectedness of all living creatures with each other and respect the natural environment, notably with regard to the extraction of raw materials.

Gender-inclusion: AI technologies must not reproduce the gender inequalities found in the real world, notably with regard to salaries, representation, access, and stereotyping. Political actions, including measures of positive discrimination, are required to avoid these major pitfalls.

UNESCO states the organisation will assist governments and civil society players (corporations, members of the public, etc) in developing concrete awareness-raising campaigns and ethical impact assessment tools for AI in all fields.

In addition to establishing international consensus on the subject, UNESCOs experts urge Member States and AI players further to raise public awareness and stress that is important for everyone to be made aware of their digital rights.

UNESCO director-general Audrey Azoulay says, “We must make sure artificial intelligence is developed for us and not against us.

“We need a robust base of ethical principles to ensure artificial intelligence serves the common good. We have made this process be as inclusive as possible since the stakes involved as universal, she explained.”

In recent years and since the outbreak of COVID-19, there have been ever more applications drawing on AI, notably with the aim of accelerating research into vaccines and improving tracing of the virus, UNESCO states.

AI has contributed to the development of telemedicine and distance learning. It has also been used to operate drones for the delivery of medical supplies and the need for a global regulatory instrument has grown on a par with the spread of AI applications.

According to UNESCO, the potential of artificial intelligence, as described in both scientific publications and works of fiction, results in fear that machines will take decisions out of human hands, that it will erode individuals right to and that it will expose people to manipulation to the detriment of their rights.

The quantity of data collected and processed daily raises concerns over confidentiality, privacy, and the reproduction of discriminatory practices and stereotypes. Hence the motivation to create a strong foundation of ethics.

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