A/HRC/57/70 60. The Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law44 is an international legally binding instrument. It was adopted on 17 May 2024 by the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe at its 133rd session. The Convention aims to ensure the compliance of AI systems, throughout their lifecycles, with human rights, democracy and the rule of law based on the following principles: human dignity and individual autonomy; equality and non-discrimination; respect for privacy and personal data protection; transparency and oversight; accountability and responsibility; reliability; and safe innovation. 61. The European Artificial Intelligence Act 45 is the E.U.’s regulatory framework for AI. It entered into force on 1 August 2024. The Act harmonized rules on responsible development and use of AI within the E.U., which include transparency obligations for general-purpose AI and mandatory labelling of artificial or manipulated images, audio or video content; and prohibition of the use of biometric identification systems by law enforcement. The Act aims to ensure safety and compliance with fundamental rights and democracy while promoting innovation. V. Conclusions and recommendations A. Conclusions 62. Digitalization and AI, including generative AI, are fundamentally neutral. Bias, and consequently prejudice, discrimination and the violation of accepted ethical and human rights norms and standards seep into digitalization and AI through human use, misuse and abuse. 46 As digitalization and AI have a cumulative, compounding and multiplier effect, they amplify, deepen, widen, and enmesh their impact, positive or negative, in evermore complex ways. Research shows that people can unconsciously retain biases garnered from AI, retaining, and deploying these biases in decision-making that result in biased judgments and discriminatory outcomes,47 if left unchecked. Conversely, if the bias is towards fairness and equity, then the benefit is increasingly more empowering, unless arrested by harmful forces. These principles are true in education, employment and economic empowerment as they are true in other spheres or aspects of human life. Thus, the fundamental solution is to ensure that from the inception, at the lowest rung of any digitalization and/or AI, that there is a conscious effort to act for benefit and not harm, recognizing that once human agency is involved, there is going to be bias. 63. In health, housing, employment and education, data used as evidence to train AI models have been prejudiced against people of African descent. First, by disproportionately reflecting specific demographics, and second, by having certain assumptions or stereotypes about different groups embedded in the data. This means AI models often reproduce and perpetuate the same inequities found in the socio-political and cultural contexts in which they are developed. Bad or incorrect data is not the only problem with the use of big data in socioeconomic decisions. The use of big data and algorithms in the context of healthcare, education, housing, employment, access to services, and in attaining cultural rights has the potential to “reproduce existing patterns of discrimination, inherit the prejudice of prior decision makers, or simply reflect the widespread biases that persist in society. 44 45 46 47 See Council of Europe Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law, available at https://rm.coe.int/1680afae3c. See Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 of the European Parliament and of the Council of the European Union of 13 June 2024, available at https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legalcontent/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=OJ:L_202401689. Ruha Benjamin, “Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code”, Social Forces, 98(4):1-3 (2020). Ivana Bartoletti and Raphaële Xenidis, Study ont he impact of artificial intelligence systems, their potential for promoting equality, including gender equality, and the risks they may cause in relation to non-discrimination ( Council of Europe, 2023), available at https://rm.coe.int/study-on-the-impactof-artificial-intelligence-systems-their-potential/1680ac99e3. 15