Europe’s AI Convention

GS Paper III Science and Technology

Context

The Council of Europe (COE) adopted The Framework Convention on Artificial Intelligence and Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law or The ‘AI convention’.

The agreement is a comprehensive convention covering AI governance and links to human rights, democracy, and the responsible use of AI.
The framework convention will be opened for signature in Vilnius, in Lithuania, on September 5.

A Framework Convention is a legally binding treaty specifying the broader commitments and objectives under the Convention, and setting mechanisms to achieve them.
The task of setting specific targets, if required, is left to subsequent agreements.
The agreements negotiated under the framework convention are called protocols.
- Example: The Convention on Biological Diversity is a framework convention while the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety is a protocol under it that deals with living modified organisms.

Definition of AI: An AI system is a machine-based system that, for explicit or implicit objectives, infers, from the input it receives, how to generate outputs such as predictions, content, recommendations, or decisions that can influence physical or virtual environments.
- The definition is similar to the one in the EU AI Act, which is based on the OECD’s definition of AI.
Aims: The Convention aim to ensure that activities within the lifecycle of artificial intelligence systems are fully consistent with human rights, democracy and the rule of law.
Scope: It is mentioned in the Article 3 of the convention, as the activities that have the potential to interfere with human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in the lifecycle of AI.
- Each Party shall apply this Convention to the activities within the lifecycle of artificial intelligence systems undertaken by public authorities or private actors acting on their behalf.
- Each Party shall address risks and impacts arising from activities by private actors in a manner conforming with the object and purpose of this Convention.
Exemptions:

Established: It is an intergovernmental organisation formed in 1949.
Membership: It has 46 members today, including the Holy See, Japan, and the U.S.A plus countries of the EU bloc and others.
Functions: To set standards, monitor compliance and work with states to:
- Fight violence against women, child sexual abuse, corruption, cybercrime, discrimination, racism, human trafficking, money laundering, organ trafficking, terrorism and torture
- Protect freedom of speech, media freedom, free elections,
- Tackle future challenges: such as artificial intelligence, bioethics and the environment

- Military Applications: Military applications of AI are not covered by the AI convention with Articles 3.2, 3.3, and 3.4 containing exemptions pertaining to the protection of national security interests, research, development and testing, and national defence, respectively.
- Private sector: Article 3(b) allows the parties to the treaty the flexibility to exempt private sector in varying degrees but without allowing them to completely exempt the private sector.
General Obligations: It pertains to the protection of human rights (Article 4), the integrity of democratic processes, and respect for the rule of law (Article 5).
- Parties to the convention are expected to take steps against disinformation and deepfakes under Article 5 which haven’t been addressed specifically.
- In Article 22, the convention indicates that Parties can go beyond the commitments and obligations specified.

Protecting Human Rights: The convention will ensure the protection and application of the existing human and fundamental rights stay protected during the application of AI systems as well.
- The obligations are primarily directed towards governments, which are expected to install effective remedies (Article 14) and procedural safeguards (Article 15).
Balancing Act: The convention itself is the need of the hour because of the balance it codifies between innovation in AI and risks to human rights.
Comprehensive Approach: The convention aims to mitigate risks from the use of AI systems for human rights, democracy, and the rule of law particularly at a time when AI regulation regimes are yet to be fully established and technology continues to outpace law and policy.
Flexibility: The framework convention route allows flexibility to parties even as the basic core principles and processes by which the objectives are to be realised are encoded.
- Parties have the discretion to decide the ways in which to achieve the objectives, depending on their capacities and priorities.
Act as a catalyst: This convention can catalyse the negotiation of similar conventions at the regional level in other places.
- As the U.S. is also a member of the COE, the convention can indirectly affect AI governance in the U.S.A as well, the hotbed of AI Innovations.

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