Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Values: What is the Path Forward?

Countries and international organizations are moving quickly to adopt AI strategies. More than fifty nations have signed on to the OECD AI Principles or the G20 AI Guidelines. The EU is developing a comprehensive regulation for AI, and UNESCO is about to adopt an AI Ethics Recommendation. Many of these policy frameworks share similar objectives - that AI should be “human-centric” and “trustworthy,” that AI systems should ensure fairness, accountability, and transparency. Looming in the background of this policy debate is the deployment of AI techniques, such as facial surveillance and social scoring, that implicate human rights and democratic values. Therefore we should ask how effectively do these policy frameworks address these new challenges? What are the differences between a country endorsing a policy framework and implementing a policy framework? Will countries be able to enforce actual prohibitions or “red lines” on certain deployments? And how do we assess a country’s national AI strategy with democratic values? These questions arise in the context of the CAIDP Report “Artificial Intelligence and Democratic Values,” a comprehensive review of AI policies and practices in 30 countries.
Speaker: Marc Rotenberg (Center for AI and Digital Policy, USA)
Moderator: Paul Timmers (Oxford University, UK | European University, Cyprus)