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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
AND THE RIGHT TO LIFE
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RECENT EVENTS
- March 2023 -
As part of the symposium
LAW IN THE INFORMATION SOCIETY
organised by the Institute of Comparative Law, the head of the project group,
Prof. Dr. Vasilka Sancin, held a presentation on the topic of
artificial intelligence and human rights.
The symposium took place on 17 March 2023,
at the Faculty of Law of UL.
Her contribution highlighted the difficulty of adopting a comprehensive definition of artificial intelligence (AI) in the light of constant, unpredictable technological advances. She further highlighted in particular the efforts made by UNESCO in adopting the framework of the Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence.
At European Union level, she presented the proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence (AI Act). In this regard, she stressed that these were technology-neutral documents and that States have an independent obligation to adapt to technological developments and to take appropriate measures to protect human rights. She noted that new technologies bring both positive and negative effects. She also stressed that the proposal takes a very anthropocentric view, focusing on the risks that these technologies may pose to humans, but does not take into account the potential environmental risks of these technologies.
Finally, she proposed the adoption of appropriate codes of conduct and stressed that the human rights perspective should be taken into account throughout the entire life cycle of AI, i.e. from the very design of AI. This is the only way to prevent the creation of AI which then has to be phased out.
- November 2022 -
As part of theAll-European International Humanitarian and Refugee
Law Moot Court, Project group of the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana
organised on 15 November 2022:
ROUND TABLE:
THE USE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN PRACTICE:
INTERNATIONAL HUMANITARIAN AND INTERNATIONAL
REFUGEE LAW PERSPECTIVES
On 15 November 2022, the Project Group of the Faculty of Law of the UL organised a roundtable discussion as part of the All-European International Humanitarian and Refugee Law Moot Court, which addressed the humanitarian aspects of the legal issues that arise in the context of the rapid development of AI technologies.
The first speaker was Prof. Yuval Shany, who spoke about the use of lethal autonomous weapons, which he referred to as "killer robots". He listed three types of concerns that the ICRC regularly raises in relation to the accelerating development of technology: problematising the generalisation of technology and stressing the concern of the quality of decisions, highlighting the lack of compassion and humanity in technology's decision-making, and also the often forgotten ethical aspect.
He pointed out that there are currently no legal frameworks prohibiting such lethal autonomous weapons, nor is there any specific treatment of AI in international law, but that the general principles of international humanitarian law, as well as human rights law apply. In this regard, he recalled that the UN Human Rights Committee has also stated in its General Comment No. 36 that "such weapons systems should not be developed and used unless their use is found to be in conformity with Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and other relevant norms of international law".
He was followed by Rebeca Moreno Jimenez of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), who spoke on this subject from the perspective of the refugee crises and migration. She stressed that the mandate of UNHCR includes the requirement for innovative approaches, which are made possible by evolving technology. As an example, she highlighted the Jetson Project, which used analytical data collection to predict the movement of displaced populations in Somalia.
She stressed that the work of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees is particularly attentive to the respect for human rights, and that its approach is based on three key elements: the data science, the work of the human rights team (which feeds this data into the machines, being careful to avoid potential discrimination), and humanitarian priorities. Finally, she highlighted the current legal gap in this area, particularly in the context of the refugee issue.
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Project group of the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana
has in collaboration with the Geneva Graduate Institute organised a
Global HealthTech Innovation Symposium
2nd November, Geneva
Members of the project team Prof. Dr. Vasilka Sancin and As. Tadeja Urbas co-organised a symposium on global health on 2 November 2022 in Geneva in collaboration with the Geneva Graduate Institute.
The discussion addressed the rapid development of health technology and its potential to lead to major technological advancements in global health. Nevertheless, such technological progress also raises several challenges that digital health technologies can bring (among others data availability and quality challenges, data privacy and ethics challenges, regulatory and policy challenges as well as integration and capacity challenges).
Event took a look at the potential benefits of the innovative ways to deliver health, considered its current obstacles and analysed the scarce contemporary legal framework that surrounds rapid technological advancements in Global health.
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- June 2022 -
Project group of the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana
has participated at the
ILA 2022 - 80th Biennal Conference,
19 - 24 June, Lisbon
The members of the Project group, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Maša Kovič Dine and as. Tadeja Urbas, attended the 80th Biennial ILA Conference in Lisbon from 19 to 24 June, where they represented the ideas of the Task Force.
Tadeja Urbas was selected to present her paper "Will the Regulation of Artificial Intelligence Open Pandora's Box? A critical analysis of the contemporary international legal framework of artificial intelligence and its impact on the protection of the right to life" in the Young Scholars panel, under the topic of New Technologies and International Law.
In her presentation, she underlined the current legal framework for AI regulation, including the OECD Recommendation on AI, the G20 Principles on AI, the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI and the EU Artificial Intelligence Act. In this context, she stressed that there is currently no adopted integrated governance of AI that effectively balances the competing interests of private corporations with the protection of human rights. She called for a global legal framework to cover the specificities of AI, i.e. its rapid and unpredictable evolution.
She also highlighted that the new legal framework will need to build on a top-down approach based on transparency and availability, where full disclosure of the AI system will not be required, but only disclosure of key technical information in order to facilitate and more accurately assess the impact on human rights.
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- Maj 2022 -
Project group of the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana
has organized
Symposium: Ensuring the right to life in the use and development of artificial intelligence
The symposium took place on Thursday and Friday, May 19 and 20, 2022
in Dolenjske toplice.
The International Research Center for Artificial Intelligence under the auspices of UNESCO (IRCAI) presented itself and its activities during the Symposium. IRCAI members also presented the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence.
Mitja Jermol, a member of IRCAI, presented the definition of artificial intelligence and stressed that the presented definition is based on both legal and technical understanding of AI. He explained that artificial intelligence is a technical tool of people that works on people's knowledge - and, therefore, represents only a mirror of all human prejudices. That is why it is crucial that we remain critical towards the results produced by artificial intelligence.
Matej Kovačič, a member of IRCAI, pointed out that, artificial intelligence is only striving for greater efficiency. He also stressed that artificial intelligence already had some negative aspects, e.g. when using autonomous weapons (e.g. Clearview) or drones (e.g. Russian KUL-BLA). Artificial intelligence can also undermine democracy. Therefore, it is crucial to be aware that artificial intelligence is merely a tool, just like a knife that can be used for good or bad.
Mihajela Črnko, Director of Communications at IRCAI, presented the research center itself since 2020, when it was established, and its current activities. She focused mainly on their network (NAIXUS) of research centres and the TOP 100 project.
Prof. Yuval Shany, however, focused in his presentation on autonomous weapons and artificial intelligence. He pointed out that the incentive to create autonomous weapons is only rising, as they can cause more damage, be more precise and thus significantly less threaten their own troops. The current problem with these weapons, however, is that the law lags behind the development of these technologies and fails to regulate their use. Article 36 of the Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions provides, however, that any development of new weapons must include an assessment of the legality of their use and consideration of the compatibility of those weapons with humanitarian and human rights law. The question, then, is not whether we will ban these weapons, but to determine the degree of prior and subsequent responsibility for the use of these weapons. However, the problem of the "black box", in which we do not know how devices work and make decisions, remains problematic, which makes it significantly more difficult to regulate them and attribute responsibility.
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- April 2022 -
Project group of the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana
organized
Symposium on Artificial Intelligence and Space Law:
Debate on the legal regulation of artificial intelligence and space law in the future and their impact on the right to life
The roundtable took place on Tuesday, April 26, 2022
in the Golden Lecture Hall at the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana
and was accesible to follow online.
The first panelist was prof. Rebecca Bresnik, Assistant Chief Councel for International Matters at NASA and Professor of Space Law at the University of Houston, USA. In her presentation, she touched upon the issues of liability in the context of space travel and space vehicles.
The second panelist was prof. dr. Jan Wouters, Professor of International Law and Director of the Center for Global Governance Studies in Leuven, Belgium. In his presentation, he highlighted the future challenges of regulating Space Law in the context of emerging artificial intelligence, the growing proliferation of new legal subjects on the international plane and the phenomenon of "aging of Treaty Law". He thus underlined the importance of further developing soft law for the
effective regulation of artificial intelligence.
The third panelist was Iva Ramuš Cvetkovič, a Junior Researcher at the Institute of Criminology at the Faculty of Law in Ljubljana and a doctoral student at the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana. She set out her presentation in the context of the description of "threats from the sky", and the question whether Space Law offers an appropriate legal framework to address the potential dangers posed by space technology that may violate the right to life.
The symposium was moderated by prof. dr. Vasilka Sancin, Head of the Department of International Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana and a Professor of International Law.
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Project group of the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana was invited
to participate in the opening event of EQUALS-EU Innovation Camp 2022,
organised by the Gender Center at the Geneva Graduate Institute.
The debate took place on Tuesday, 12. April 2022 online on the topic
"Understanding online violence(s), and Pathways for Justice"
Speaking at the roundtable were Ms. Eniola Mafe (Head of the Vision 2030 Project in the Department of Technology and Sustainable Development at the World Economic Forum), Ms. Tamara Dancheva (Head of International Relations in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Industry at the GSMA), Ms. Caroline Wamala-Larsson Assistant Professor of Gender Studies and Head of Research at the Swedish ICT Program in Developing Regions (SPIDER) at Stockholm University)
and on behalf of the PF project group, as. Tadeja Urbas.
The discussion was moderated by dr. Claire Somerville, Executive Director of the IHEID Gender Center.
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- March 2022 -
Project group of Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana organised with the Graduate Institute Geneva
A ROUNDTABLE
AI in the Future: Roundtable on the impacts of AI on Human Rights, Peacebuilding and Global Health
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The main topic highlighted during the roundtable was the future of artificial intelligence in three different spheres, namely human rights, peacebuilding and global health. Each segment underlined the interlinkage and the impact of the development and use of AI, and the challenges faced due to numerous advances in science and the development of new technologies.
Prof. Vasilka Sancin, PhD, head of the Department of International Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana and the Project leader of the AI and the Right to Life Research Group in Ljubljana, highlighted issues related to the protection of human rights and stressed that future regulation of artificial intelligence will be needed. She, however, also noted the danger of over-regulation and fragmentation.
Susanne Andreae, PhD, Head of Health and the Healthcare Industry at the World Economic Forum in Geneva, pointed out that while we are still in the early stages of developing artificial intelligence, it is important that we adopt appropriate regulation and establish trends of quality, affordability and proper management. Only this way will we be able to avoid deepening the already existing differences between high- and low-income countries.
Mehdi Snene, PhD, Assistant Professor at the University of Geneva and Head of the International Research Groups on Digital Health and Artificial Intelligence in Geneva (I-DAIR), highlighted the importance of discussing a global health data strategy and stressed the need to assist countries with poor databases in order to speed up the digitalisation process. He further stressed that artificial intelligence is merely a tool in the hands of the people, and called for capacity building in the global south that could further contribute to developing accessible artificial intelligence.
Mariazel Maqueda López, PhD, Head of the PeaceTech Department at the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), described their two core projects of work, conducted in collaboration with the Graduate Institute Geneva. The first project explores the use of artificial intelligence in connection with the media and focuses mainly on ways to identify fake new ones, while the second explores how technology is facilitating gender-based violence.
Miss Caitlin Kraft-Bauchman, founder and director of the feminist organisation Women at the Table, which focuses on changing systems using technology, innovation and artificial intelligence, addressed the bias of algorithms that have been selected and standardised by "white males". She noted that it is important to observe who develops algorithms and who asks questions that are relevant for further development of artificial intelligence.
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