• Home
  • The Institute
  • Bucharest Conference on “Building a Global Ethical Framework for AI: The UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI”
Miscellaneous  |  10/27/2022

Bucharest Conference on “Building a Global Ethical Framework for AI: The UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI”

On 4 October 2022, Dietmar Harhoff, member of UNESCO’s High-Level Expert Group (HLEG) on the Implementation of the AI Recommendation since December 2021, participated as an expert in the con­fer­ence on “Building a Global Ethical Framework for AI: The UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI” in Bucharest, which addressed the guidelines on the design, development, and use of AI systems adopted in November 2021. The con­fer­ence focused on the need to promote diversity and inclusiveness, and how to move from principles to practice to assess the ethical impact of Artificial Intelligence on society.

Participants of the conference on Building a Global Ethical Framework for AI in Bucharest. Center: Gabriela Ramos, Assistant Director-General for the Social and Human Sciences of UNESCO, with Sebastian-Ioan Burduja, Minister of Research, Innovation and Digitalization. Right: Dietmar Harhoff and Mariagrazia Squicciarini, Chief of Executive Office, Chief of Executive Office, Social and Human Sciences Sector at UNESCO.

On 23 November 2021, the 193 Member States at UNESCO’s General Conference adopted the Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, which is the first global normative in the field responding directly to the need for clear, ethically informed guidelines on the design, development and use of AI systems. This very first global standard-setting instrument on the subject is to not only protect but also promote human rights and human dignity, and will be an ethical guiding compass and a global normative bedrock allowing to build strong respect for the rule of law in the digital world.


The international conference on the UNESCO Recommendation was organized by the Romanian Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitalization (MCID), together with UNESCO and two of the most prestigious Romanian Universities – West University of Timişoara (UVT) and Politehnica University of Bucharest (UPB) – and was held at the premises of Politehnica University of Bucharest in presence of Gabriela Ramos, Assistant Director-General for the Social and Human Sciences of UNESCO, and Sebastian-Ioan Burduja, Minister of Research, Innovation and Digitalization.


The event brought together a wide array of stakeholders from science, legal practice, policy, and civil society to discuss the UNESCO recommendation and its ability to serve as a global instrument for the ethical design, development and deployment of Al.


The conference centered around two main themes: the need to promote diversity and inclusiveness, and how to move from principles to practice to assess the ethical impact of AI on society.


Dietmar Harhoff was a keynote speaker and shared his professional vantage points to the first panel to discuss and explore issues such as the lack of diversity and inclusiveness in AI, algorithmic bias and discrimination, as well as possible measures to address these issues. However, he also pointed to the difficult trade-off between regulation and incentives for innovation.


Directly to the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence.