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November 25, 2021

Andrew Campbell 

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) issued the world's first global standard on artificial intelligence (AI) on November 25th, which is a historical text that describes the common values and principles required for AI's healthy evolution. 

According to UNESCO, while AI is assisting governments and the private sector in making better decisions and addressing global issues such as climate change and hunger, there are an increasing number of cases of untrustworthy AI technologies being used in law enforcement to address gender and ethnic bias, significant threats to privacy, self-respect, and agency, and threats of blanket surveillance. 

The Recommendation's main points are data protection, the prohibition of social scoring and mass surveillance, monitoring and evaluation assistance, and environmental protection. 

UNESCO will assist its 193 Member States in implementing the Recommendation and will request regular reports on their progress and practices.