- The Council of Europe (COE) took a big step by adopting the Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law — also known as the ‘AI convention’.
- The COE is an intergovernmental organisation formed in 1949, with 46 members today, including the Holy See, Japan, and the U.S., plus countries of the EU bloc and others.
- The agreement is a comprehensive convention covering AI governance and links to human rights, democracy, and the responsible use of AI.
- The framework convention will be opened for signature in Vilnius, in Lithuania, on September 5.
- A ‘framework convention’ is a legally binding treaty that specifies the broader commitments and objectives under the Convention, and sets mechanisms.
- In future, there may be a ‘Protocol on AI Risk’ under Europe’s AI convention.
| Definition of AI Article 1 of the convention states aims to ensure artificial intelligence systems are fully consistent with human rights, democracy and the rule of law.The definition of AI is similar to the one in the EU AI Act, which is based on the OECD’s definition of AI: “An AI system is a machine-based system that, for explicit or implicit objectives, infers, from the input it receives, how to generate outputs such as predictions, content, recommendations, or decisions that can influence physical or virtual environments.”While disinformation and deep fakes haven’t been addressed specifically in the framework. |
The AI convention doesn’t create new and/or substantive human rights specific to AI. Instead, it asserts that existing human and fundamental rights are protected.
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