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The International Debate on AI Regulation and Human Rights in the Prism of the Council of Europe’s CAHAI: Great Ambitions
- Edited by Philip Czech, Universität Salzburg, Lisa Heschl, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Austria, Karin Lukas, Ludwig Boltzmann Institut für Menschenrechte, Austria, Manfred Nowak, Global Campus of Human Rights, Venice and Universität für angewandte Kunst Wien, Gerd Oberleitner, Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Austria
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- Book:
- European Yearbook on Human Rights 2022
- Published by:
- Intersentia
- Published online:
- 20 April 2023
- Print publication:
- 30 November 2022, pp 225-252
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Summary
ABSTRACT
Over the past two years, the international debate on artificial intelligence (AI) regulation has clearly escalated, with several initiatives led by the United Nations (UN), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the Council of Europe (CoE). Furthermore, at a regional level, the European Union (EU, the Union) proposal on a future regulation on AI, and several national strategies, have created fertile ground for a more mature and elaborate debate. In this regard, the initiative of the CoE, with the establishment of the Ad Hoc Committee on Artificial Intelligence (CAHAI), with its multi-stakeholder approach, the different legal cultures of Member States and Observers, and stakeholder participation process, offers an interesting case study on the tensions underpinning the ongoing regulatory process. Leaving aside the variety and creativity of ethical guidelines, developing binding provisions on AI entails addressing important and challenging issues relating to the scope of the regulation; the interplay between international, national and soft law; different approaches in crucial areas (dual-use technology, national security, deference, public sector, liability, etc.); and the role and nature of future AI supervisory authorities. In this contribution, we analyse all these different elements not only from a traditional legal perspective, focused on the main outcomes of the CAHAI, but also by looking at the process and highlighting the underlying tensions, different points of view, consultation methodologies and the dynamics that make the dialogue on AI regulation an extremely interesting laboratory for human rights law. The overall focus of our analysis is on the ambitions that characterise the debate on AI regulation, and how the initial high expectations of addressing crucial human rights issues risk being frustrated and limited to a general riskbased approach, as well as a minimalist regulation which looks more to industry and economic benefi ts than to human rights. This is occurring at a time when several academic researchers suggest adopting a broader perspective on the AI industry by considering its entire supply chain from a human rights standpoint, which also has relevance for the role of human rights in international business and competition.
Regulating AI within the Human Rights Framework: A Roadmapping Methodology
- Edited by Philip Czech, Lisa Heschl, Karin Lukas, Manfred Nowak, Gerd Oberleitner
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- Book:
- European Yearbook on Human Rights 2020
- Published by:
- Intersentia
- Published online:
- 11 February 2021
- Print publication:
- 01 December 2020, pp 477-502
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Summary
ABSTRACT
The ongoing European debate on Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly polarised between the initial ethics-based approach and the growing focus on human rights. The prevalence of one or the other of these two approaches is not neutral and entails consequences in terms of regulatory outcomes and underlying interests.
The basic assumption of this study is the need to consider the pivotal role of ethics as a complementary element of a regulatory strategy, which must have human rights principles at its core. Based on this premise, this contribution focuses on the role that the international human rights framework can play in defining common binding principles for AI regulation.
The first challenge in considering human rights as a frame of reference in AI regulation is to define the exact nature of the subject matter. Since a wide range of AI-based services and products have only emerged as a recent development of the digital economy, many of the existing international legal instruments are not tailored to the specific issues raised by AI. Moreover, certain binding principles and safeguards were shaped in a different technological era and social context.
Against this background, we need to examine the existing binding international human rights instruments and their non-binding implementations to extract the key principles that should underpin AI development and govern its groundbreaking applications.
However, the paradigm shift brought about by the latest wave of AI development means that the principles embodied in international legally binding instruments cannot be applied in their current form, and this contribution sets out to contextualise these guiding principles for the AI era.
Given the broad application of AI solutions in a variety of fields, we might look at the entire corpus of available international binding instruments. However, taking a methodological approach, this analysis focuses on two key areas – data protection and healthcare – to provide an initial assessment of the regulatory issues and a possible roadmap to addressing them.
INTRODUCTION
The last few years have seen a growing debate on the ethical dimension of data use and the new challenges and issues posed by data-intensive systems based on Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI).