Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights: We Need to Talk about the Use Phase

Authors

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  Dunstan Allison-Hope

  Senior Advisor, BSR

  

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  Dunstan Allison-Hope

  Senior Advisor, BSR

  

  San Francisco

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  Dunstan leads BSR’s work at the intersection of technology and human rights.

  Previously, Dunstan led BSR’s information and communications technology, heavy manufacturing, and human rights teams.

  He brings significant experience working on a diverse range of engagements and issues, including human rights due diligence, privacy and freedom of expression, sustainability reporting and strategy, and stakeholder engagement.

  Dunstan facilitated the multistakeholder process of developing global principles on freedom of expression and privacy, which led to the launch of the Global Network Initiative in October 2008. He also helped create the Electronic Industry Citizenship Coalition, a collaborative initiative of more than 100 ICT companies improving conditions in their supply chains. Dunstan participated in the process of creating the Global Reporting Initiative G3 guidelines, and he is a regular commentator on issues of corporate accountability, reporting, and human rights. He also co-authored the 2010 book Big Business, Big Responsibilities.

  Prior to joining BSR in 2004, Dunstan was part of British Telecommunications' corporate responsibility team.

  Dunstan has an M.Prof. in Sustainable Development from Forum for the Future.

  Close

• Michaela Lee

  Former Manager, BSR

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  Hannah Darnton

  Director, Technology and Human Rights, BSR

  

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  Hannah Darnton

  Director, Technology and Human Rights, BSR

  

  San Francisco

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  Hannah works with multinational companies to align business and human rights strategies and facilitate incorporation of sustainable practices into business operations across sectors.

  She focuses on the intersection of human rights and new, disruptive technology and leads the Tech Against Trafficking collaborative initiative.

  Prior to joining BSR, Hannah worked with the Skoll Foundation, where she co-led the portfolio and investments team’s efforts to identify social entrepreneurs with the potential to drive large-scale social change. Her work led to over US$20 million in grants and investments between 2015 and 2018. Before Skoll, Hannah spent six years working in anti-human trafficking in West Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Bay Area. She is fluent in French.

  Hannah holds a Master’s in NGOs and Development from the London School of Economics and a B.A. in Political Science and French from the University of Michigan. She currently serves on the advisory boards of Oxfam’s Women in Small Enterprise initiative and Convening17.

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As business, government, and civil society make progress in addressing the human rights impacts and ethical questions arising from the use of artificial intelligence (AI), we believe that one supremely important constituency needs to participate much more actively: the “non-technology” companies integrating AI into their business operations, strategies, and plans.  

Without these participants, dialogue about AI and human rights risks being too focused on the development of AI, with insufficient attention given to the companies deploying AI. Our aim with this blog is to explain why. 

In August last year, BSR published three reports setting out the importance of taking a human rights-based approach to the development, deployment, and use of AI. Since then, we’ve put this advice into practice in our work with BSR member companies in the U.S., Asia, and Europe to develop policies on AI and human rights, engage with civil society organizations, and undertake human rights due diligence of AI solutions. We’ve had the opportunity to consider a wide range of scenarios—including algorithmic decision making, facial recognition, and sentiment analysis—as well as a wide variety of application areas, including retail, national security, human resources, and transportation systems. As can be imagined for technologies that are evolving so rapidly, it’s been a time of extraordinary learning. 

In many ways, this work has confirmed predominant assumptions that exist around how technology companies can fulfill the responsibility to respect the human rights impacts arising from the use of their products and services. Across many different settings, our recommendations have coalesced around some common themes: scrutinize the quality of training data, examine to whom you sell products and services and refuse sales to those most likely to misuse them, and establish acceptable use policies that place restrictions on how products and services may be used. We’ve also recommended system-wide approaches, such as advocating for rights-protecting laws and regulations, increasing disclosure and transparency, and providing best practice guidance for users. 

These are all important responsibilities held by technology companies, and nothing that follows should suggest otherwise. However, we’ve found that the common thread running throughout these recommendations is the notion that technology companies should use their leverage to prevent the misuse of products, services, and technologies by influencing the actions of others—and that no matter how much effort is deployed, there is no guarantee of success. 

Decisions made today about the deployment of AI will bring significant consequences for the realization of human rights long into the future.

This observation has led us to one simple question: In addition to trying to influence the actions of others, shouldn’t we also be working more directly with the companies, governments, and organizations that are directly deploying AI themselves? In the terms of the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, why would we spend most of our time working with the companies that are contributing to or directly linked to human rights impacts, and much less of our time working with the companies that might be causing them? 

• In the retail industry, stores are deploying AI for theft protection, creating new privacy, security, and discrimination risks, especially for vulnerable populations and marginal groups.  
• In the transportation industry, airlines and airports are deploying facial recognition during the boarding and screening process, raising important issues of consent and non-discrimination.  
• In the automotive industry, car companies are collecting more location data than ever before and sharing them with governments, provoking new questions about whether automotive companies should join with technology companies in publishing law enforcement relationship reports.  
• In the hotel industry, facial recognition technologies are being used to ease the check-in process, impacting rights such as freedom of movement.  

Companies in all these industries should be taking a human rights-based approach to their use of AI. 

The second of the three reports we published last year on the importance of a human rights-based approach to AI anticipated these issues. In it, we listed the human rights risks and opportunities arising from the use of AI in the financial services, health care, retail, transportation, agriculture, and extractives industries, and proposed sector-wide impact assessments for each industry. One year on, we are doubling down on this point of view, such as during our recent participation in the Skoll World Forum, Sustainable Brands Paris, and our own BSR Connect events.  

Decisions made today about the deployment of AI will bring significant consequences for the realization of human rights long into the future—and this means that undertaking due diligence of AI across all industries now is a matter of urgency and not something that can be put off into a distant future. Today, we are joining the Partnership on AI, and we look forward to making good on this perspective by working more closely with the Partnership on AI and BSR member companies across all industries to assess the human rights impacts arising from their use of AI.