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The use of AI is advancing at almost incomprehensible speeds, driving decision making that has broad impacts on society, and with the potential to dramatically impact human rights. Indeed,

AI has the potential to affect nearly every recognized human right, including the rights to freedom of expression, thought, assembly, association and movement; the right to privacy and data

protection; the rights to health, education, work and an adequate standard of living; and non-discrimination and equality.  AI may also give rise to the need to instantiate new forms of

rights, such as the right to a human decision.  

The human rights abuses that can occur through the implementation of AI systems include facilitating mass surveillance as well as perpetuating bias in the criminal justice system,

healthcare, education, the job market, access to housing, and access to banking, thereby exacerbating discrimination against already marginalized groups.  AI is also having a negative impact

on democracies through facilitating the spread of disinformation, the creation of deep-fakes and synthetic media to sow chaos and confusion, and the removal of content documenting human

rights abuses. At the same time, AI has the potential to benefit human rights, from facilitating advances in healthcare to tracking supply chain compliance.  

Both governments and corporations have a duty to respect human rights. The international human rights regime is an ecosystem of established laws, frameworks, and institutions at the

international, regional, and domestic levels within which individuals can seek respect for their human rights as well as remedies for human rights violations. Although government and

industry leaders often affirm the centrality of human rights in the development and deployment of “responsible” AI systems, all too often this takes the form of general principles or

statements that are either difficult to implement in practice or neglect to consider the full range of potential use cases. As advances in AI accelerate, human rights need to be integrated

into every level of AI governance regimes. 

In February 2024, the Promise Institute for Human Rights at UCLA School of Law convened a symposium on Human Rights and Artificial Intelligence, bringing together leading experts to examine

some of the critical questions arising from the rapid expansion of AI and the lagging governance models. The purpose of this symposium – a collaboration between the Promise Institute and

Just Security – is to share some of the insights captured by our speakers with a broader audience, and to elevate some of the most pressing questions about the relationship between AI and

human rights.

New articles in the series will run each week, tying together the following themes:

Taken together, this symposium provides a rich picture of how AI can be used both to uphold and violate human rights.  Widespread AI use is inevitable – policymakers must move quickly to

ensure fundamental rights and freedoms are protected around the world.

Jess Peake is the Director of the International and Comparative Law Program at UCLA School of Law.

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