The Palais de l’Europe (the Council of Europe’s principal building in Strasbourg).
Goldsmiths Law is delighted to launch a programme of “European encounters”, intended to bring our students, academics and the wider public in the UK in contact with European institutions, to shed light on the work they are doing in key areas of activity influencing our day-to-day lives; justice, security, the environment, commerce, financial services, the rule of law, technology, international human rights.
In this first session in the series, on Tuesday, March 5, 09.30 to 11.30, we have the pleasure of welcoming to the College the Council of Europe’s Charlotte Altenhöner-Dion, who is the Head of the Internet Governance Unit and Secretary to the Expert Committee on Human Rights Dimensions of Automated Data Processing and Different Forms of Artificial Intelligence (MSI-AUT). Book your place here.
Charlotte will bring to our attention the Council of Europe’s efforts to assess both the threats and opportunities of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for human rights. The Council of Europe’s new website on AI provides a useful illustration of recent initiatives, forthcoming events, and projects planned.
The Council of Europe with its 47 member states is the continent’s leading human rights organisation and guardian of the rights of some 830 million Europeans. Technological advancement over the last decades has fundamentally transformed societies by providing new tools for communication, news consumption, education, entertainment, commercial transactions and multiple other facets of everyday activities. Operating on the detection and reinforcement of patterns in large datasets, information processing technology offers the potential to rationalise services and deliver enormous efficiency gains in task and systems performance, which may enhance human flourishing and contribute to creating optimal conditions for the exercise of human rights.
Increasing numbers of Europeans reap the benefits of AI every day as unprecedented progress is made in a wide range of fields, including industrial productivity, health care, transportation and logistics. At the same time, there is growing concern amongst the public about the broader implications of the use, and possible abuse, of automated data processing and mathematical modelling for individuals, for communities, and for societies. Can computational data analytics replace the reasoning of a trained judge when applying the law to a specific context? How does algorithmic decision-making affect the delivery of essential public services and our recruitment and employment conditions? Can individuals remain visible as independent agents in societies that are shaped by optimisation processes? What is the effect on freedom of expression and the plurality of public communication spaces when individuals are micro-targeted with messages that are based on profiling? And finally: how does the increasing reliance on mainly privately developed and run technology square with the rule of law and the fundamental principle of democratic societies that all power must be accountable before the law?
Charlotte Altenhöner-Dion will attempt to provide answers to these questions, reflecting on Council of Europe work in this area, including the adoption of the first European text defining the ethical framework for the use of AI in judicial systems; the draft ‘Declaration on the manipulative capabilities of algorithmic processes’ (which is being discussed on February 12) and the high-level conference in Helsinki on 26 and 27 February 2019 on ‘Governing the Game Changer – Impacts of AI on Human rights, Democracy and the Rule of law’.
Charlotte Altenhöner-Dion has a law degree from Hamburg University and an LL.M. in International Law from Georgetown University. She has been with the Council of Europe for the past ten years, having previously worked for the OSCE and the UN, including in Central Asia, the Balkans, and East Africa. Her current professional focus lies on the human rights impacts of digital transformation, intermediary liability, and the institutional challenges of governing fast-moving technologies in a rights-compliant manner, while adhering to the principles of democracy and the rule of law.
The ”European Encounter” series echoes the Law programme’s intention to offer its students unique opportunities to engage with UK and European policy makers, and to explore cutting edge issues such as the relationship between technology and European human rights. You can read more about areas of specialisation in the LLB Law programme here.
[Published 13 February 2019]