World leaders agree landmark pact on digital rights. What does it mean for AI — and us?
You don’t forget the first time you visit the glimmering monolith that is the United Nations Headquarters in New York. It towers over the East River like Kubrick’s obelisk in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Some interpret the symbol, which appears in the film at key moments in humanity’s evolution, as shaping human progress; to others, it’s utterly baffling.
As a young tourist, I’d seen the UN tower but only ventured inside years later, passing the knotted gun sculpture, for briefings en route to my duty station in Haiti where I worked as a civilian peacekeeper.
This month, its revolving doors are generating centrifugal force as 193 UN member states gather for the 79th Session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA). Like other blockbusters, the event, like the UN itself, gets mixed reviews. For many, it’s a critical forum to debate global issues and advance cooperation — not least on the side lines. For critics, it’s a talking shop where competing state interests stymie any meaningful or concrete progress.
Yet the UN is not a monolith — it’s an architecture. Beyond its instruments and laws, and outside the Security Council (a shaky pillar that risks undermining the whole structure), the UN encompasses myriad programs, agencies and bodies, many of which undertake critical work.
World leaders adopt Global Digital Compact
One example is the UN’s High-level Advisory Body on AI whose Governing AI for Humanity report and recommendations fed into the Global Digital Compact — a landmark agreement which Member States adopted yesterday at the UN Summit of the Future.
Framed within the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the Compact outlines necessary actions “to overcome digital, data and innovation divides” and ensure a rights-based, human-centred digital future.
Having spent the summer myself leading research on AI’s opportunities, risks and gaps as perceived by Global South civil society organisations for CARE International with Accenture, I’m pleased to see the UN’s AI Advisory Body focusing on global inclusion.
The path to action
The UN AI Advisory Body’s recommendations include supporting wider AI literacy through ‘capacity development networks’; establishing a Global Fund for AI to narrow the AI divide; holding regular inter-governmental, multi-stakeholder policy dialogues; and, establishing a Global AI Data Framework to standardize principles for AI training data governance, accountability, and to support local AI ecosystems.
Following two years of consultation and inter-governmental negotiations, the Global Digital Compact echoes and expands on these recommendations.
Tying individual commitments to the achievement of one or more SDGs, the Compact’s ambitions are corralled under five objectives. These span connectivity and digital literacy, equitable inclusion in the digital economy, safety and human rights in the digital space, data governance mechanisms to protect rights and advance development, and enhanced international governance of AI centring humanity.
Significantly, leaders agreeing to the non-binding Compact “recognise the need” but do not “commit” to an inclusive approach to AI governance with “full and equal representation of all countries, especially developing countries, and the meaningful participation of all stakeholders.” The type of qualifier that raises UN-cynical eyebrows.
Participatory AI
The Compact also speaks to tech companies. Urging wider efforts to enable the participation of diverse groups in the AI lifecycle, it calls urgently on “companies and developers to engage with users of all backgrounds and abilities to incorporate their perspectives and needs into the life cycle of digital technologies.”
If you follow TMR, you’ll know how critical I believe it is to build this bridge between communities and tech developers. One point on the word ‘users’ — when talking about engagement and participation, it sounds even better when we say ‘people’… (See How to ‘Do Good’ and Avoid Doing Harm: 7 Actions for Big Tech, Governments and Civil Society).
States must now act
As a former UN staffer, I recognise the UN’s limitations, the challenges of its bureaucracy and politics. Non-binding agreements are, well, non-binding. Yet I still believe it plays a critical role in signalling the values that a rights-based global community should uphold — even if translating principles into practice is consistently challenging. The AI Advisory Body’s recommendations and the Global Digital Compact are examples of this stewardship and help to steer AI governance and development in the right direction. Now action must follow words. That will take effort from governments, companies, researchers, civil society and beyond.
Follow Suzy on LinkedIn for more on AI and its social implications. Suzy appears on podcasts including Humanitarian AI and Standard Issue. See the ‘About’ page for author’s biography.
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