At their 72nd annual General Assembly during the IPI World Congress on May 25, 2023, in Vienna, Austria, IPI members unanimously passed a resolution calling on governments to develop and deploy A.I. with strong human rights safeguards that protect media freedom and enable independent, pluralistic information ecosystems.
A.I. is progressively moulding our information landscapes and impacting what news and material people read and share. These technologies could make journalism more resilient and sustainable, improving newsgathering and storytelling to engage viewers.
AI-based technologies can potentially damage our information ecosystems and jeopardise fundamental human rights, which robust, independent media systems and free societies depend on. Without effective human rights regulation and oversight, malevolent actors are using these technologies to spread poisonous disinformation and other damaging speech that pollutes our information ecosystems, and sows distrust in the media and other democratic institutions. These tools can also monitor journalists and civil society.
We underscore that international law requires nations to defend the fundamental rights to freedom of expression, information, and privacy, which journalists need to function freely, safely, and independently. The U.N. Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights require states to guarantee that their policies and actions do not undermine or threaten these fundamental rights and that enterprises respect and preserve them.
So, governments must swiftly enact robust global human rights-based guardrails to develop and deploy A.I. systems to safeguard media freedom and pluralistic news and information ecosystems.
We welcome that states are recognising the urgency of creating common human-rights-based A.I. standards, including in regional instruments like the forthcoming EU AI ACT, the OSCE Policy Manual on Artificial Intelligence and Freedom of Expression, and recommendations by the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights. Such standards must be developed worldwide in close consultation with a diverse range of civil society partners, including journalists and media professionals.
