International Human Rights, Artificial Intelligence, and the Challenge for the Pondering State: Time to Regulate?

Abstract

This article looks at the risks and advantages of early regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) from an international human rights (IHR) angle. By exploring arguments from scholarly and policy papers from various jurisdictions on possible approaches to regulating AI, the authors identify a current trend among states to wait rather than proactively regulate. The authors challenge the idea that there is a reasonable or legitimate case to ‘wait and see’. The article presents three examples of AI systems, using a women's rights lens, in order to outline the IHR implications of AI that states will have to grapple with in the years to come as AI usage grows. This article illustrates that the absence of adequate regulation in the AI domain may itself be a violation of IHR norms, reflecting a state of play where governments have relinquished their obligations to protect, fulfil, and remedy. However, given the limited likelihood that regulatory actions will occur in the short term, in the interim, the IHR monitoring framework should require states to systematically assess and report on their readiness to deal with the human rights risks of AI systems, in order to limit such risks and identify the longer-term needs of regulation.