The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) aggravates and accelerates human rights violations around the world if regulation continues to lag behind. This is due to their high capacity to spread false information or perpetuate racist prejudices, as concluded by the annual report of Amnesty International (AI) for 2023. It also highlighted that conflicts such as Gaza, Ukraine, Sudan, Burma or Ethiopia, among others, demonstrate that the current global order based on international law is about to collapse.
“The unregulated deployment of technologies such as generative artificial intelligence, facial recognition and spyware are about to become a dangerous enemy, with the capacity to intensify and fuel violations of international law and human rights to exceptional limits,” said the general secretary of the organization, Agnès Callamard, in the presentation of the document published this Wednesday.
In a year marked by electoral events, the NGO warns of the consequences of the abuse of these technologies for political purposes. “Hate, discrimination and misinformation are amplified and propagated by social media algorithms optimized to maximize ‘engagement’ above all else,” Callamard warned.
The instrumentalization of these technologies carries more severe consequences when applied in war contexts. This is the case of Facebook's algorithms that contributed to general ethnic violence in Ethiopia, according to the organization.
Likewise, countries such as Argentina, Brazil, India, the United Kingdom and the United States have used facial recognition technology to consolidate discriminatory policies in public protests. New York, for example, monitored Black Lives Matter protesters. Some population control tools that Israel also implements in the occupied Palestinian territories, which “have contributed to maintaining the apartheid system,” he prayed.
The greatest danger of these technologies, including generative AI, is the lack of regulation, according to the NGO. Although the European Union has taken action on the matter with the entry into force last February of the Digital Services Law - he added - this is "imperfect and incomplete." Callamard highlighted the “enormous gap” between the “risks of advancing technologies” and “regulation.”
And if these new technologies run rampant in a world on the “brink of the collapse of international law,” according to AI, the result is a ticking time bomb. The organization warned that the United States and Israel, as well as Russia and China, have led a global disregard for international rules and values enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with civilians paying the highest price.
Regarding the Middle East, Callamard lamented that “the United States has shielded Israeli authorities from scrutiny of the multiple violations committed in Gaza. By using their veto against an essential ceasefire, he added, they have emptied the (UN) Security Council of its meaning.” At the same time, it “continues to arm Israel with munitions that have been used to commit acts that likely constitute war crimes,” the report adds.
The same applies to Russia and China, which have also crippled rule enforcement mechanisms, with their veto power over the Ukraine and Burma conflicts, respectively. The three powers "have emptied the capacity of international law to protect people," Callamard said. Regarding the first war, AI denounced the indiscriminate attacks against the civilian population, while, regarding Burma, it criticized Chinese support for the country's armed forces, which have committed abuses against civilians and claimed the lives of a thousand people in the country. 2023.
The report, which details Amnesty's assessment of human rights in 155 countries, highlighted a growing crackdown on women's rights and gender equality, as well as shocking sexual violence, in 2023. As examples, it cited the brutal repression of women's protests in Iran, Taliban decrees "aimed at erasing women from public life" in Afghanistan, legal restrictions on abortion in the United States and Poland, the murder of nine women a day in Mexico.
