UN sets up advisory body to investigate AI globally

The United Nations (UN) has created an advisory body on artificial intelligence (AI). Even though Canada is not sitting on the panel, it still has much to offer, an Ottawa university professor states. Ksenia Yadav is an adjunct professor at Carleton University’s department of electronics. She says there is a great deal of excellent research being done in this country on AI. Canada does not have a representative among the 32 people sitting on the UN board. “I don’t think we should worry too much about being included or not but rather to absorb the positive aspects that can come out of those conversations,” she told The Wire Report in a phone interview. The advisory body was set up last month by the UN to look at AI governance and will be issuing its interim report in December, with the final report due mid-year in 2024. It is made up of government officials, private sector representatives and civil society. It promises to consult widely. Yadav praises the makeup of the panel as inclusive. She believes the board is timely. “In general AI advisory boards, especially at a global level like the United Nations advisory board on AI, they have a role in addressing the societal, legal and ethical implications of AI,” she stated. “And if we just think about it more generally, the more powerful the technology, the more it can be abused.” AI is the most powerful technology ever made and is hard to regulate, as it is evolving so quickly, she opined. Canada should look at the international regulatory scene and adapt laws to fit the Canadian landscape. Yadav’s sentiment echoed what was shared in a recent report published by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) on concerns around the risks posed by AI deepfakes. Put together by experts from the agency’s academic outreach and stakeholder engagement program, the report is based on discussions stakeholders had during a workshop organized by CSIS in May. Examining current and possible future threats the technology poses to society, the report encourages governments, businesses, and organizations to develop comprehensive standards and laws for the responsible use of deepfake tech, improve detection methods, and to promote digital literacy training among Canadians. “Spurred by advancements in AI, deepfakes are viewed as a modern evolution of disinformation,” it writes. Its capabilities evolve at a rapid pace, becoming increasingly accessible and realistic while also becoming more difficult to recognize and detect. Deepfakes threaten democratic society “as certain actors seek to capitalize on uncertainty or perpetuate ‘facts’ based on synthetic and/or falsified information,” the report says. Weaponized deepfake content and the harms it can cause are already being seen today. It cites an example of synthetic content of Ukrainian President Zelensky at the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, “urging his army to surrender.” Deepfake identity scams made more than $2.3 million in six months in 2021, according to the Federal Trade Commission, and “phantom fraud,” a kind of money laundering enabled by the tech, has cost roughly $4.5 billion. It also pointed to the tech being used to create non-consensual explicit content of women, which makes up over 90 per cent of deepfakes available online. The report lauded the Treasury Board of Canada’s Directive on Automated Decision Making and the Department of Canadian Heritage’s Digital Citizen Initiative as positive steps towards supporting AI innovation while reducing its risks and promoting digital literacy, but urged for more to be done. Governments must adapt and update existing laws to clarify issues of accountability, individual rights, and to address the lack of “distributor liability for social media platforms circulating deepfake content.” They must also foster the research and development of technologies to better detect and mitigate deepfakes. “A promising approach is that of content authentication,” it added, encouraging an open standard of information transparency and the use of cryptographic markers to identify how a piece of content was made. A system like this is being developed by the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity, a non-profit organization with members including the BBC, Microsoft Corp., Adobe Inc. and Intel Corp. “When it comes to drafting and implementing new policies … democratic governments are, perhaps by necessity, notoriously slow moving. AI, in stark contrast, advances and evolves rapidly,” it wrote. The report called on governments not to work at their “typical speed” and to collaborate with partners, allies, academics, and industry experts. – Reporting by Paul Park at ppark@thewirereport.ca and Phalen Tynes-MacDonald at pcreed@thewirereport.ca and editing by Jenna Cocullo at jcocullo@thewirereport.ca

UN sets up advisory body to investigate AI globally

News | November 20, 2023

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UN sets up advisory body to investigate AI globally

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