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Disability Discrimination in the Digital Realm: How the ICRPD Applies to Artificial Intelligence Decision-Making Processes and Helps in Determining the State of International Human Rights Law (Human Rights Law Reivew; Volume. 23, Issue. 3) Year of publication: 2023 Author: Tetyana Krupiy | Martin Scheinin Scholars have identified challenges to protecting individuals from discrimination in contexts where organisations deploy artificial intelligence decision-making processes. While scholarship on ‘digital discrimination’ is growing, scholars have paid less attention to the impact of the use of artificial intelligence decision-making processes on persons with disabilities. This article posits that while the use of artificial intelligence technology can be beneficial for some purposes, its deployment can also construct a disability. The article demonstrates that the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities can be interpreted in a manner that confers a wide variety of human rights on persons with disabilities in the context when entities deploy artificial intelligence decision-making processes. The article proposes a test for digital discrimination based on disability and shows how it can be incorporated into the treaty through legal interpretation. Thereafter, it moves to developing an analogous general test for digital discrimination under international human rights law, applicable beyond a catalogue of protected characteristics. 
The Effects of AI on the Working Lives of Women Year of publication: 2022 Author: Clementine Collett | Gina Neff | Livia Gouvea Gomes Corporate author: UNESCO | Inter-American Development Bank | Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) The use of AI technologies will affect women’s opportunities for work, and their position, status and treatment in the workplace. Around the globe, women in the labour force earn less than men, spend more time undertaking unpaid child- and elder-care jobs, hold fewer senior positions, participate less in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, and tend to hold more precarious jobs overall. In harnessing AI, governments, institutions and companies must narrow gender gaps rather than perpetuate or exacerbate them. This report, by the IDB, OECD and UNESCO, outlines current knowledge of the impact that AI systems have on women’s opportunities for work, and their position, treatment and status in the workforce. It does so by exploring how AI is used within and outside the workplace, and how it could be used in the future. It looks at the potential impact of new and emerging AI technologies on the skills that employers will require, on how women look for and are hired for jobs, and on how jobs are structured through automated monitoring and oversight. The report maps the opportunities and challenges that AI presents for the working lives of women and highlights the complexities that varying national and regional contexts present for understanding the impact of AI on the work of women. The report also notes that current research does not offer a complete or definite picture of how AI impacts the working lives of women and calls for further research and analysis in this area. 
AI Competency Framework for Students Year of publication: 2024 Author: Fengchun Miao | Kelly Shiohira Corporate author: UNESCO Artificial intelligence is increasingly integral to our lives, necessitating proactive education systems to prepare students as responsible users and co-creators of AI. Integrating AI learning objectives into official school curricula is crucial for students globally to engage with AI safely and meaningfully.The UNESCO AI Competency Framework for Students aims to help educators in this integration, outlining 12 competncies across four dimensions:- A human-centred mindset- Ethics of AI- AI techniques and applications- AI system designThese competencies span three progression levels:- Understand- Apply- Create The framework details curricular goals and domain-specific pedagogical methodologies.Grounded in the vision of students as AI co-creators and responsible citizens, the publication emphasizes critical judgement of AI solutions, awareness of citizenship responsibilities in the AI era, foundational AI knowledge for lifelong learning, and inclusive, sustainable AI design. 
AI Competency Framework for Teachers Year of publication: 2024 Author: Fengchun Miao | Mutlu Cukurova Corporate author: UNESCO AI processes vast information, generates new content, and helps decision-making through predictive analyses. In education, AI has transformed the traditional teacher–student relationship into a teacher–AI–student dynamic.This shift requires a re-examination of teachers’ roles and the competencies they need in the AI era. Yet, few countries have defined these competencies or developed national programmes to train teachers in AI, leaving many educators without proper guidance.The AI competency framework for teachers addresses this gap by defining the knowledge, skills, and values teachers must master in the age of AI. Developed with principles of protecting teachers’ rights, enhancing human agency, and promoting sustainability, the publication outlines 15 competencies across five dimensions: Human-centred mindset, Ethics of AI, AI foundations and applications, AI pedagogy, and AI for professional learning. These competencies are categorized into three progression levels: Acquire, Deepen, and Create.As a global reference, this tool guides the development of national AI competency frameworks, informs teacher training programmes, and helps in designing assessment parameters. It also provides strategies for teachers to build AI knowledge, apply ethical principles, and support their professional growth. 
Consultation Paper on AI Regulation: Emerging Approaches Across the World Year of publication: 2024 Author: Juan David Gutiérrez Corporate author: UNESCO Since 2016, over thirty countries have passed laws explicitly mentioning AI, and in 2024, the discussion about AI bills in legislative bodies has increased globally. This policy brief aims to inform legislators about the different regulatory approaches to artificial intelligence (AI) being considered worldwide by legislative bodies. The brief explains nine emerging regulatory approaches, each illustrated with specific cases worldwide. The order in which the nine AI regulatory approaches are presented is deliberately structured to guide readers from less interventionist, light-touch regulatory measures to more coercive, demanding approaches. These regulatory approaches are not mutually exclusive and AI bills often combine two or more approaches:1. Principles-Based Approach2. Standards-Based Approach3. Agile and Experimentalist Approach4. Facilitating and Enabling Approach5. Adapting Existing Laws Approach6. Access to Information and Transparency Mandates Approach7. Risk-Based Approach8. Rights-Based Approach9. Liability Approach The policy brief suggests parliamentarians how they can address three key questions before adopting AI regulations:1. Why regulate? Determine whether regulation is needed to address public problems, fundamental and collective rights, or desirable futures.2. When to regulate? Reach a consensus on why regulation is needed, map available regulatory instruments, compare them with other policy instruments, and assess the feasibility of adopting the former.3. How to regulate? Identify a combination of AI regulatory approaches that are tailored to specific contexts. 
Chile: Artificial Intelligence Readiness Assessment Report Year of publication: 2023 Corporate author: UNESCO The Readiness Assessment Methodology (RAM) is a diagnostic tool intended to assist Member States in upholding their commitment to the Recommendation by helping them understand how prepared they are to implement AI ethically and responsibly for all their citizens. The RAM questionnaire forms the basis for the first section of this readiness assessment report, providing a comprehensive but detailed overview of laws, institutions, and the cultural, social, and human capital landscape shaping AI. This is then complemented in the second section by a summary of concerns and priorities raised during a national multistakeholder consultation that was conducted in 2023. Finally, the third section presents a roadmap and recommendations for building capacities across national institutions, laws and policies, and human capital, to achieve a responsible AI ecosystem aligned with the UNESCO Recommendation. As the very first country to complete the RAM and the country report, Chile is blazing the trail not only for Latin America but the world. We applaud the initiative the Chilean government has taken to update its AI strategy putting ethics and governance front and centre, and thank them for inviting UNESCO to assist in this endeavour. The report presented here reveals a complex and rapidly-changing landscape. In the legal and regulatory dimension, the 2021 National Artificial Intelligence Policy (NAIP) represents a substantive and wide-ranging commitment to developing AI. One of the key recommendations of this report is to fully integrate the UNESCO Recommendation into the NAIP’s axis of Ethics, Regulation, and Socioeconomic Impacts. Notably, the RAM reveals the pressing need to update legislation around data protection and cybersecurity to meet the challenges of AI. It also highlights several areas the Chilean government is actively working to develop. [...] Overall, this report presents a fundamentally optimistic vision that we at UNESCO share: that ethical governance and responsible regulation of AI is entirely consistent with innovation and economic growth, and is essential for ensuring a technological ecosystem that benefits the public good. In drawing a clear line from the RAM data through to the multistakeholder consultations and the recommendations, Chile has a clear roadmap for how to get there. (This text has been extracted from the Foreword of the publication) 
AI and the Future of Education: Disruptions, Dilemmas and Directions Year of publication: 2025 Corporate author: UNESCO Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the way we learn, teach and make sense of the world around us, but it is doing so unequally. While one-third of humanity remains offline, access to the most cutting-edge AI models is reserved for those with subscriptions, infrastructure and linguistic advantage.These disparities not only restrict who can use AI, but also determine whose knowledge, values and languages dominate the systems that increasingly influence education.This anthology explores the philosophical, ethical and pedagogical dilemmas posed by disruptive influence of AI in education. Bringing together insights from global thinkers, leaders and changemakers, the collection challenges assumptions, surfaces frictions, provokes contestation, and sparks audacious new visions for equitable human-machine co-creation.Covering themes from dismantling outdated assessment systems to cultivating an ethics of care, the 21 think pieces in this volume take a step towards building a global commons for dialogue and action, a shared space to think together, debate across differences, and reimagine inclusive education in the age of AI.Building on UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of AI, its Guidance on Generative AI in Education and Research and its twin AI competency frameworks for teachers and students, such a global commons can direct collective sense-making and bold reimagination around curricula, pedagogy, governance and policy with human rights, justice and inclusion at its core. 
Challenging Systematic Prejudices: An Investigation into Bias Against Women and Girls in Large Language Models Year of publication: 2024 Author: Daniel Van Niekerk | Maria Peréz Ortiz | John Shaw-Taylor | Davor Orlic | Ivana Drobnjak | Jackie Kay | Noah Siegel | Katherine Evans | Nyalleng Moorosi | Tina Eliassi-Rad | Leone Maria Tanczer | Wayne Holmes | Marc Peter Deisenroth | Isabel Straw | Maria Fasli | Rachel Adams | Nuria Oliver | Dunja Mladenić | Urvashi Aneja | Madeleine Janicky Corporate author: UNESCO | International Research Centre on Artificial Intelligence (IRCAI) This study explores biases in three significant large language models (LLMs): OpenAI’s GPT-2 and ChatGPT, along with Meta’s Llama 2, highlighting their role in both advanced decision-making systems and as user-facing conversational agents. Across multiple studies, the brief reveals how biases emerge in the text generated by LLMs, through gendered word associations, positive or negative regard for gendered subjects, or diversity in text generated by gender and culture. The research uncovers persistent social biases within these state-of-the-art language models, despite ongoing efforts to mitigate such issues. The findings underscore the critical need for continuous research and policy intervention to address the biases that exacerbate as these technologies are integrated across diverse societal and cultural landscapes. The emphasis on GPT-2 and Llama 2 being open-source foundational models is particularly noteworthy, as their widespread adoption underlines the urgent need for scalable, objective methods to assess and correct biases, ensuring fairness in AI systems globally. 
Global Toolkit on AI and the Rule of Law for the Judiciary Year of publication: 2023 Author: Miriam Stankovich | Ivana Feldfeber | Yasmín Quiroga | Marianela Ciolfi Felice | Vukosi Marivate Corporate author: UNESCO What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)? How does it work? And more importantly, how does it find its way into the judicial context? Technologies such as AI have been around for decades, but only recently have they begun to be used in a variety of justice and law enforcement settings. While AI has immense potential for the justice system, helping judges make better decisions, improving efficiency, increasing access, and helping to detect and prevent crime, there are also some important issues that justice stakeholders should consider as they prepare for a future in which AI is increasingly used in justice systems.In 2022, UNESCO launched two needs assessments. First, through UNESCO’s Artificial Intelligence Needs Assessment Survey in Africa, 90% of the 32 countries surveyed requested capacity building support for the Judiciary on AI. At the same time, a second global survey of judicial actors in 100 countries underlined the need for better understanding the use of AI in the administration of justice and its wider legal implications on societies.The “Global Toolkit on AI and the Rule of Law” for the Judiciary responds to these needs and provides judicial actors (judges, prosecutors, state attorneys, public lawyers, law universities and judicial training institutions) with the knowledge and tools necessary to understand the benefits and risks of AI in their work. The toolkit will assist judicial actors in mitigating the potential human rights risks of AI by providing guidance on the relevant international human rights laws, principles, rules and emerging jurisprudence that underpin the ethical use of AI. 
“I Don’t Have a Gender, Consciousness, or Emotions. I’m Just a Machine Learning Model” Year of publication: 2023 Corporate author: UNESCO | International Research Centre on Artificial Intelligence (IRCAI) An introduction to a forthcoming Gender bias in Artificial Intelligence report coming out on March 8, 2024. As we stand on the precipice of a technological revolution driven by Artificial Intelligence (AI), it is imperative to ensure that this future is shaped equitably, representing all genders. With this essay we are excited to announce our forthcoming in-depth report on Gender and Artificial Intelligence in a partnership between IRCAI and UNESCO, set for release on March 8, 2024. As we prepare for this milestone event, we extend an invitation to experts, scholars, and all interested stakeholders to join us in our research.