Protecting children in the age of AI

The next phase of the fourth Industrial Revolution must include an overwhelming push to extend Internet access to all children. Governments, private sector, civil society, parents and children must push hard for this now, before AI further deepens the pre-existing inequalities and creates its own disparities. And on mitigating on-line harms, we need a multi-pronged action plan: we need legal and technological safeguards; we need greater awareness among parents, guardians and children on how AI works behind the scenes; we need tools, like trustworthy certification and rating systems, to enable sound choices on safe AI apps; we need to ban anonymous accounts; we need enforceable ethical principles of non-discrimination and fairness embedded in the policy and design of AI systems — we need “do no harm” risk assessments for all algorithms that interact with children or their data. In short, we need safe online spaces for children, without algorithmic manipulation and with restricted profiling and data collection. And we need online tools (and an online culture) that helps prevent addiction, that promotes attention-building skills, that expands children’s horizons, understanding and appreciation for diverse perspectives, and that builds their social emotional learning capabilities.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child urges all public and private actors to act in the best interests of the child, across all their developmental activities and provision of services. In February, in a landmark decision, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child adopted General Comment 25, on implementing the Convention on the Rights of the Child and fulfilling all children’s rights in the digital environment. This is an important first step on the long road ahead.

UNICEF’s Generation AI initiative is currently working with the World Economic Forum’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution and other stakeholders to realiae the potential of AI for children in a safe and transparent way. UNESCO consulted with young people, among other stakeholders, in drafting the Recommendations for ethical AI that will be adopted by member states this year and is working to enhance AI literacy through MOOCs. UNESCO’s Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace came together this year with UNICEF, UNV, and United Nations in India for a nation-wide consultation with young people to identify the ethical concerns around AI most important to young people in India.

The Government of India has put in place strong policies to protect the rights and well-being of children, including a legislative framework that includes the Right to Education. Laws and policies to prevent a range of abuses and violence, such as the National Policy for Children (2013), can be extended for children in a digital space.

But much more needs to be done, here in India and around the world. And in this interconnected world, the more we can agree upon multilaterally and by multi-stakeholder groups, the easier it may be to implement nationally and locally. Just as India proactively helped shape the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and gave the world the principle of Ahimsa, this great country could also galvanise the international community around ensuring an ethical AI for Generation AI.

- Renata Dessallien is United Nations Resident Coordinator, India

Originally published in The Hindu