GENEVA: UN human rights chiefs are calling for a ban on the use of artificial intelligence technology that poses a serious threat to human rights, including face-scanning systems that track people in public places.
Michelle BacheletThe UN High Commissioner for Human Rights also said on Wednesday that countries should explicitly ban AI applications that do not comply with international human rights law.
Applications that should be banned include government “social scoring” systems that judge people based on their behavior and some AI-based tools that classify people into groups such as ethnicity or gender.
AI-based technologies can be a force for good, Bachelet said in a statement, but they can have “negative, even devastating, effects if they are used without adequate attention to How they affect the human rights of the people.”
His remarks coincided with a new United Nations report that examines how countries and businesses have implemented AI systems without instituting appropriate safeguards to prevent discrimination and other harms that affect people’s lives and livelihoods. affect.
“It’s not about not having an AI,” Peggy Hicks, the director of thematic engagement of the Office of Rights, told reporters while presenting the report in Geneva. “It’s about recognizing that if AI is going to be used in these human rights – very important – work areas, then it has to be done in the right way. And we have not yet built a framework that ensures that that Be.
Bachelet did not call for a ban on facial recognition technology outright, but said governments should stop scanning people’s features in real time until they can show that the technology is accurate, will not discriminate. and meets certain privacy and data protection standards.
While countries were not named in the report, China is among countries that have introduced facial recognition technology – particularly for surveillance in the western region of Xinjiang, where many of its minority Uighurs live. The report’s lead authors said naming specific countries was not part of their mandate and could be counterproductive to do so.
“In the Chinese context, as in other contexts, we are concerned about transparency and discriminatory applications that address particular communities,” Hicks said.
She cited several court cases in the United States and Australia where artificial intelligence was unfairly applied.
The report also warns about tools that try to deduce people’s emotional and mental states by analyzing their facial expressions or body movements, adding that such technology is susceptible to bias, misinterpretations And there is a lack of scientific basis.
“The use of emotion recognition systems by public authorities, for example to isolate individuals for police stops or arrests or to assess the veracity of statements during interrogation, risks undermining human rights, such as the right to privacy, Rights test to freedom and fairness,” the report says.
The report’s recommendations echo the thinking of many political leaders in Western democracies, who hope to tap into the economic and social potential of AI, addressing growing concerns about the reliability of tools that track and profile individuals. and make recommendations about who has access to jobs, loans. and educational opportunities.
European regulators have already taken steps to curb the riskiest AI applications. Proposed rules outlined by EU officials this year would ban some uses of AI, such as real-time scanning of facial features, and strictly control others that could put people’s safety or rights at risk.
US President Joe Biden’s administration has expressed similar concerns, although it has not yet outlined a detailed approach to mitigating them. a newly formed group called business and technology council, jointly led by US and European officials, have sought to cooperate in developing common rules for AI and other technology policy.
Efforts to limit the riskiest uses of AI have been backed by Microsoft and other US tech giants that are expected to guide regulations affecting the technology. Hicks said Microsoft has worked with the United Nations Office of Rights and provided funding to help improve its use of the technology, but the funding for the report came through the Rights Office’s regular budget, Hicks said. he said.
Western countries have been at the fore in expressing concern about the discriminatory use of AI.
“If you think about the ways in which AI could be used in a discriminatory way or further strengthen the discriminatory trend, it’s very scary,” the US Commerce Secretary said. Gina Raimondo During a virtual conference in June. “We have to make sure we don’t let that happen.”
She was speaking with Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission’s executive vice president for the digital age, who suggested that some uses of AI should be completely off-limits in “democracies like ours”. She cited social scoring, which can lock down one’s privileges in society, and “the widespread, widespread use of remote biometric identification in a public space.”
Michelle BacheletThe UN High Commissioner for Human Rights also said on Wednesday that countries should explicitly ban AI applications that do not comply with international human rights law.
Applications that should be banned include government “social scoring” systems that judge people based on their behavior and some AI-based tools that classify people into groups such as ethnicity or gender.
AI-based technologies can be a force for good, Bachelet said in a statement, but they can have “negative, even devastating, effects if they are used without adequate attention to How they affect the human rights of the people.”
His remarks coincided with a new United Nations report that examines how countries and businesses have implemented AI systems without instituting appropriate safeguards to prevent discrimination and other harms that affect people’s lives and livelihoods. affect.
“It’s not about not having an AI,” Peggy Hicks, the director of thematic engagement of the Office of Rights, told reporters while presenting the report in Geneva. “It’s about recognizing that if AI is going to be used in these human rights – very important – work areas, then it has to be done in the right way. And we have not yet built a framework that ensures that that Be.
Bachelet did not call for a ban on facial recognition technology outright, but said governments should stop scanning people’s features in real time until they can show that the technology is accurate, will not discriminate. and meets certain privacy and data protection standards.
While countries were not named in the report, China is among countries that have introduced facial recognition technology – particularly for surveillance in the western region of Xinjiang, where many of its minority Uighurs live. The report’s lead authors said naming specific countries was not part of their mandate and could be counterproductive to do so.
“In the Chinese context, as in other contexts, we are concerned about transparency and discriminatory applications that address particular communities,” Hicks said.
She cited several court cases in the United States and Australia where artificial intelligence was unfairly applied.
The report also warns about tools that try to deduce people’s emotional and mental states by analyzing their facial expressions or body movements, adding that such technology is susceptible to bias, misinterpretations And there is a lack of scientific basis.
“The use of emotion recognition systems by public authorities, for example to isolate individuals for police stops or arrests or to assess the veracity of statements during interrogation, risks undermining human rights, such as the right to privacy, Rights test to freedom and fairness,” the report says.
The report’s recommendations echo the thinking of many political leaders in Western democracies, who hope to tap into the economic and social potential of AI, addressing growing concerns about the reliability of tools that track and profile individuals. and make recommendations about who has access to jobs, loans. and educational opportunities.
European regulators have already taken steps to curb the riskiest AI applications. Proposed rules outlined by EU officials this year would ban some uses of AI, such as real-time scanning of facial features, and strictly control others that could put people’s safety or rights at risk.
US President Joe Biden’s administration has expressed similar concerns, although it has not yet outlined a detailed approach to mitigating them. a newly formed group called business and technology council, jointly led by US and European officials, have sought to cooperate in developing common rules for AI and other technology policy.
Efforts to limit the riskiest uses of AI have been backed by Microsoft and other US tech giants that are expected to guide regulations affecting the technology. Hicks said Microsoft has worked with the United Nations Office of Rights and provided funding to help improve its use of the technology, but the funding for the report came through the Rights Office’s regular budget, Hicks said. he said.
Western countries have been at the fore in expressing concern about the discriminatory use of AI.
“If you think about the ways in which AI could be used in a discriminatory way or further strengthen the discriminatory trend, it’s very scary,” the US Commerce Secretary said. Gina Raimondo During a virtual conference in June. “We have to make sure we don’t let that happen.”
She was speaking with Margrethe Vestager, the European Commission’s executive vice president for the digital age, who suggested that some uses of AI should be completely off-limits in “democracies like ours”. She cited social scoring, which can lock down one’s privileges in society, and “the widespread, widespread use of remote biometric identification in a public space.”
.