What do human rights look like in an AI-dominated world?

Artificial intelligence impacts all aspects of human rights. How should governments approach regulation?

The societal impact of artificial intelligence is often couched in terms of data privacy – the privacy of the individual or collective privacy rights. But Michael O’Flaherty, director of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, said that we should be talking about AI in the broader sense of human rights.

Algorithms, said Michael, “impact your freedom of expression, your freedom of assembly, your freedom of movement, your privacy, but also issues of socio-economic wellbeing, issues of social welfare, right to a job, health care, education” – the list goes on. In this episode of The Next Stage, Michael discussed how AI can and should be developed and regulated in this context.

Michael also explained that governments increasingly use algorithms across every dimension of their work, which is largely decentralised currently and trickier to oversee or regulate.

“Every imaginable human right is engaged by AI, for good but also in this area of risk and human rights violation.” – Michael O’Flaherty, director of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights

“In very few countries do you have a central registry or a central place of awareness of the extent to which algorithms are being applied across the different elements of governance, by the way, not just central government, but also local government,” explained Michael.

“We’re concerned that citizens are simply not aware yet of the extent to which decisions that impact their wellbeing are being made, at least in the first instance, by a machine. We have many indications of a low level of awareness, not least the lack of complaints.”

According to the director, what needs to be done is to take on the UN recommendation to carry out an audit of the use of algorithms by various states and bring this to the public for discussion, which will engage citizens in the policy-making process.

“Every imaginable human right is engaged by AI, for good but also in this area of risk and human rights violation. And that triggers a duty on the part of the state, because all of our states have signed up to human rights commitments in international treaties,” said Michael.

“Here in Europe, the best known is the European Convention on Human Rights, which requires the state to protect your human rights. And so if algorithms or an artificial intelligence more generally is impacting your rights, then the state has no choice. It has to regulate. So it’s not a question of regulation or no regulation, in a rights-based society, a rule of law society must regulate.”

Michael O’Flaherty, director of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights, was in conversation with Iain Martin, Europe News Editor at Forbes, on the Future Societies stage at Web Summit 2022.

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