The United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) is an autonomous research institute within the UN system that undertakes interdisciplinary research and policy analysis on the social dimensions of contemporary development issues.
Description of Activities on AI
Project: Think Piece Series
UNRISD has launched a Think Piece Series which invites experts from academia, think tanks and civil society to engage with the topic of linking technology and human rights, and to share their experience at the front lines of policy-driven research and advocacy aimed at leaving no one behind in an increasingly digital, automated world.
This Series aims to provide perspectives on the intersections between new technology and various dimensions of civil and political rights and economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to health, work, social protection, freedom of expression and more. It also presents reflections on how we conceptualize and practice human rights in the face of technology-driven change on a global scale.
The Series was launched to coincide with the 37th Session of the UN Human Rights Council, as part of UNRISD’s commitment to promote socially just and sustainable development within and beyond the UN system. It is also part of the UN system’s celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
First Edition: From Disruption to Transformation
- Tech for Transformative Change? Looking beyond Disruption—Kelly Stetter
- Time for a Fourth Generation of Human Rights?—Changrok Soh, Daniel Connolly and Seunghyun Nam
- Embracing Human Diversity: Policies and Enabling Factors for Accessible Technologies—Alejandro Moledo
- Data Frameworks for a Right to Development—Anita Gurumurthy and Nandini Chami
- Big Data and Monitoring Sustainable Development Goal 3: Not Counting Those Left Behind?—Carmel Williams
- Accounting for the Most Vulnerable: Ensuring Big Data Works for Sustainable and Inclusive Development—Sabrina Rau and Sheldon Leader
- How IT Threatens Democracy—Kofi Annan
- Technology and Freedom of Expression: Opportunities and Threats through the Journalist’s Lens—Mariateresa Garrido
- A Feminist Interrogation of Autonomy on the Internet—Jac sm Kee
Second Edition: Tools for Transformation
The second edition of this think piece series on new technologies and human rights focuses more on responses and possible solutions to issues sketched out in the first edition. The authors were speakers at our official side event of the 39th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council on new technologies and human rights held in September 2018.
- Profiling and Automated Decision Making: Is Artificial Intelligence Violating Your Right to Privacy?—Tomaso Falchetta
- Legal Literacy: An Essential Complement to Digital and Scientific Literacy—Thérèse Murphy
- Human Rights and New Technologies: Setting the Agenda for Human Rights-Centred Innovation—Molly K. Land
UNRISD held an event on new technologies and human rights, co-sponsored by Austria and Denmark, at the 39th session of the UN Human Rights Council.
Great interest in the topic, but difficult to convert into solid funding for holistic and critical research enquiries.
