UNESCO’s work recognized among best AI initiatives with social and ethical impact
UNESCO is among the 10 winners recognized for its efforts in elaborating a global Recommendation on the Ethics of AI. UNESCO received the award during a webinar on “The 10 best AI initiatives with social and ethical impact” organized on 2 December 2020.
UNESCO, as a global laboratory of ideas is playing a leading role in facilitating international cooperation and shaping the future of AI, and has taken up the challenge, mandated by its Member States, to develop the first global normative instrument in the form of a Recommendation on the Ethics of AI. This normative instrument translates the what of AI ethics into the how of relevant policy action, offering concrete ways for the realization of an ethical framework of universal principles and values.
Today, AI plays a role in billions of people’s lives. This has been exacerbated with the spread of the pandemic. Sometimes unnoticed but often with profound consequences, it transforms our societies and challenges what it means to be human. Along with multiple advantages, these technologies also generate downside risks and challenges, derived from malicious use of technology or deepening inequalities and divides.
The Recommendation pays particular attention to the wider ethical implications of AI systems in relation to UNESCO’s core areas of education, science, culture and communication and information.