Event: The first Global Forum on AI Ethics will take place on December 13 in Prague

7 décembre 2022

It is within the framework of the Czech Presidency of the Council of the European Union and under the patronage of UNESCO that the first Global Forum on AI Ethics, whose theme is “Ensuring Inclusion in the AI World,” will be hosted by the Czech Republic on December 13 in Prague.

Last year, the European Commission reaffirmed the strategic importance of AI for Europe and the need to regulate its use in its various application sectors with a proposal for a new AI regulation presented on April 21. That same year, UNESCO published the “Recommendation on the Ethics of AI”, the first global normative instrument in this field, which was adopted by the 193 member states on November 25, 2021.

This forum marks an important step in building a strong International Coalition ensuring the ethical development and use of AI worldwide. It will include three main components:

Ethical development and use of AI in the EU: strengthening national regulatory frameworks and institutions. This session will explore priorities for more effective governance at the national level, examine the complementarities of the UNESCO Recommendation and the emerging EU legal framework, and identify opportunities for UNESCO-EU partnership on national reform programs on AI governance;
Global collaboration between the EU and UNESCO for the implementation of the Recommendation on AI ethics: this session will feature Digital Ministers from around the world, including Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. They will lead a discussion on the opportunities presented by the promotion of AI technologies globally and the challenges of putting in place ethical safeguards to ensure their beneficial use. This section of the forum will build on the collaboration under discussion between the European Commission (INTPA) and the Social and Human Sciences at UNESCO for the EU to support their efforts, particularly in Africa, to implement the recommendation;
Special Topics: Parallel sessions will be devoted to exploring the state of AI from different perspectives – gender equality, environmental protection, ethical impact assessments and preparedness, transparency and non-discrimination.

The program

The forum will begin with presentations by:

Jan Lipavský, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic, representing the Czech Presidency of the Council of the European Union;
Audrey Azoulay, Director General of UNESCO;
Mario Nava, Director General, Directorate General for Structural Reform Support (DG REFORM) (virtual).

Setting the scene: staying ahead of ethical AI

UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI, Gabriela Ramos, Assistant Director-General for Social and Human Sciences of UNESCO;
Securing an Ethical Path for AI, Stuart J. Russell, Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley (virtual).

The ministerial session will then focus on global collaboration for the implementation of the Unesco AI Ethics Recommendation

Building institutional infrastructures for ethical AI

Chair and Moderator: Ivan Bartoš, Deputy Prime Minister for Digitalization and Minister of Regional Development of the Czech Republic.
Participants: Ministers from EU and non-EU countries.

Countries represented: Argentina, Belgium, Chile, Czech Republic, Ecuador, Republic of Korea, Slovenia, Spain and CAF (Development Bank of Latin America).

In the afternoon, two expert roundtables will be held:

The first one will be about “Ensuring inclusion, transparency and non-discrimination in AI through the readiness assessment methodology”.

The moderator will be David Leslie, Director of Ethics and Responsible Innovation Research, Alan Turing Institute, the speakers:

Elizabeth M. Renieris, Senior Research Associate, Oxford Institute for Ethics in AI;
David Reichel, Justice, Digital and Migration Unit, European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA);
Ravi Naik, Legal Director at AWO;
Alžběta Solarczyk Krausová, Lawyer at the Department of Private Law of the State and Law Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences;
Lorena Jaume-Palasí, Founder of The Ethical Tech Society (virtual);
Sandra Wachter, Professor and Senior Researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute (virtual).

The second will be on “Ensuring Multi-Stakeholder Engagement in the Evolution of Ethical Impact.”

The moderator will be Marek Havrda, Deputy Minister of European Affairs, Czech Republic, speakers:

John Shawe-Taylor, Director of the International Research Center on Artificial Intelligence (IRCAI);
Nayat Sánchez-Pi, Director of the Center, French Institute for Research in Computer Science (Inria), Chile;
Marek Rosa, CEO and founder, GoodAI;
Radim Polčák, Director, Institute of Law and Technology, Masaryk University, Faculty of Law, Brno, Czech Republic;
Juha Heikkilä, Artificial Intelligence Advisor, Directorate General for Communication Networks, Content and Technology, European Commission;
Elham Tabassi, Chief of Staff, Information Technology Laboratory (ITL), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), USA (virtual);
Peter-Paul Verbeek, Chair of UNESCO’s COMEST and Rector Magnificus of the University of Amsterdam (virtual);
Lynn H. Kaack, Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Public Policy at the Hertie School, and Co-Founder and President of Climate Change AI (virtual).