On Thursday, September 28 – International Day for Universal Access to Information – more than 50 presenters and experts from across the globe will discuss a range of topics focusing on whether Artificial Intelligence (AI) is an existential threat or tool for scaling over human limitations, the new rules of AI and how to secure open, inclusive, knowledge societies.

The discussions will be held at the 4th Artificial Intelligence for Information Accessibility (AI4IA) Online Conference, to take place against the background of AI technology development at break-neck speed and anthropomorphised machines that are increasingly performing many human tasks. These developments are already having far-reaching impacts on communities and societies. For example, generative AI makes it simple to churn out lifelike images and videos, complicating the problem of disinformation. On the flip side, there is an opportunity to manage AI and advanced technologies to revolutionise health care, education and business, enhance the scope of quality community engagement, enrich our shared information environment and deliver benefits in an equitable manner for everyone. The one-day conference will be hosted by the UNESCO Information For All (IFAP) Working Group on Information Accessibility (WGIA).

The speakers who will tackle these tough issues include Jamaicans: Dr Dana Morris Dixon, minister without portfolio in the Office of the Prime Minister with responsibility for skills and digital transformation; Cordel Green, attorney-at-law, executive director of the Broadcasting Commission, member of the National Task Force on Artificial Intelligence and chairman of the UNESCO Information For All (IFAP) Working Group on Information Accessibility (WGIA); and award-winning journalist and attorney-at-law Dionne Jackson Miller.

The international speakers include: Dr Isabela Ferrari, Brazilian federal judge; Emile P. Torres, philosopher, historian and author of Human Extinction: A History of the Science and Ethics of Annihilation; Dr Chen Changfeng, professor and former dean of the School of Journalism and Communication at Tsinghua University; Professor David Harel, president of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities; Professor Emma Ruttkamp-Bloem, chair of the Southern African Conference on AI Research, chairperson of the UNESCO Ad Hoc Expert Group that prepared the draft of the 2021 UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI and Rapporteur for the UNESCO Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST); Sir Geoff Mulgan, professor at the University College London (UCL), head of the International Public Policy Observatory and former director of the UK Government’s Strategy Unit and head of policy in the Prime Minister’s Office, UK; Mike Johns, futurist and founder of Digital Mind State; Professor Sonia Livingstone, who has founded the 33-country EU Kids Online Network, having advised the UK government, European Commission and UNICEF on children’s Internet safety and rights in the digital space; Vin Rock, founding member of the Grammy award-winning American Hip Hop trio Naughty by Nature; and Singaporean high-school student Winston NG, who is co-founder and CEO of a metaverse technology company that develops immersive virtual experiences.. There will also be a number of UNESCO officials presenting, in addition to pioneers in the digital space from the Caribbean, Africa, UK, China, India, Brazil, and USA, among other countries.

Speaking on the primary aim of the conference, which is in its fourth year, Green said: “It will be to make the risks and opportunities of AI more understandable and relatable to the widest cross-section of people. The presenters will look at such topics as: AI and Participatory Democracy; AI and War; AI and the Environment; Convergence of AI and Neuro-technology; AI and Law; Implications of Large Language Models; Gendered perspectives on AI; Culture, Indigenous Societies and Data Sovereignty; Data Scraping and Exploitation; Digital Rights of Children; Use of AI to overcome Disabilities and Deliver Access; AI and Longtermism; AI and Health; Intersection of AI, Art and Human Creativity; and Governance of AI, including tensions around the concepts of Freedom of Expression and Information Accessibility.”

The AI4IA conference will be free to all, but registration is required at: https://ai4iaconference.com/register-now/

The live opening session via Zoom is set for Thursday, September 28, from 1 p.m. to 2:35 p.m. (GMT). However, on-demand pre-conference viewing of videos are available on the Gather.Town platform all day on September 26, 27 and 28. Live interactive sessions (Gather.Town) will take place on September 28, 2023 from 8:00 am -10:00 am (GMT) and 16:00 -18:00 (GMT).

The conference partners are: UNESCO Cluster Office for the Caribbean; UNESCO Regional Office for Southern Africa; University of Alberta; Observer Research Foundation, India; The Alberta Machine Intelligence Institute and Broadcasting Commission of Jamaica.