The UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, adopted in November 2021, was the first global standard-setting instrument on AI ethics. It was approved by the member states of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization at the organization’s General Conference, giving it a reach across nearly every country in the world. Unlike a treaty, a UNESCO recommendation is not legally binding, but member states agree to apply its provisions and to report on their progress.
The recommendation is organized around four core values - human rights and human dignity; living in peaceful, just and interconnected societies; ensuring diversity and inclusiveness; and a flourishing environment and ecosystem - and ten core principles. Those principles include proportionality and do no harm, safety and security, the right to privacy and data protection, multi-stakeholder governance, responsibility and accountability, transparency and explainability, human oversight and determination, sustainability, awareness and literacy, and fairness and non-discrimination.
The document goes beyond high-level values to name eleven policy areas where governments are asked to act, spanning data governance, the environment, gender, education, health, and the economy. It frames AI broadly, as systems able “to process data in a way which resembles intelligent behaviour,” so the standard remains relevant as the technology changes. UNESCO has since promoted implementation tools, including a readiness assessment methodology that helps individual countries gauge how prepared they are to govern AI responsibly.