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Participation of law, justice and development 2019

On November 2019 the Headquarters of the World Bank in Washington D.C. and partners organized a forum dedicated to exploring diverse topics involving the use technology, development and human rights titled “Law Justice and Development 2019” (LJD2019). This meeting was triggered by various concerns derived from the arrival of the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”. Propelled by technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), block chain and drones, this era has brought possibilities unthinkable for those who once built the foundations of legal frameworks and justice systems across the globe. According to Professor Virginia Greiman, who presented “A Guide to Protecting Human Rights in AI Megaprojects”, 37.5 Billion USD are currently spent on AI worldwide. This fact is not surprising and specially in the leading economies, in which the funding for development is being driven by private sector as supposed to government sources.

The LJD2019 facilitated a time and place for relevant stakeholders to share knowledge and analyze the advantages and impact of and the challenges posed by, the use of technologies in diverse domains including Law. Striking and multiple examples were presented of the use of technology such as drones and block chain to ameliorate or solve social and environmental issues in different countries in Africa. Novel cases of the use of technology in government and legal systems were presented, such as to fight corruption in Minas Gerais, Brazil, and to improve decision-making for criminal prosecution in Guatemala.

Parallel to this, ethical analyses were presented in the most innovative ways to trigger deep reflections in the attendees and conversations which seek to tackle real-world problems. One stellar example of this was the “Biometric Mirror” Project brought to the conference by Dr. Niels Wouters, Head of Research and Emerging Practice at the Science Gallery Melbourne Interaction Design Lab in the University of Melbourne. In this interactive exercise the attendees had the opportunity to interact with a system built by Dr. Wouters’ research team and feel what it would be like to be analyzed by an A.I. system used in a Human Resources company. The system takes a picture of the interested individual, and a couple seconds after, it performs a face analysis it delivers values to estimate categories such as gender, age, ethnicity, “happiness”, “kindness”, “responsibility”, “uniqueness”, “sociability” “weirdness”. Following the complete list of results the screen shows a message “So you look X age and have X profile. Imagine that I send this to recruitment agencies, and they pass this on to future employers. It may seem science fiction, but it can be done”. In fact, Dr. Wouters commented that a couple of companies had already shown interest in buying this system from them, even though it wasn’t designed for commercial purposes. Throughout the days, participants frequently asked about the system’s accuracy, to which he responded reminding that concepts such as “kindness” and “responsibility” are not binary concepts. Accuracy is hard to measure when it comes to social and moral qualities, and to an extent dependent upon culture.

Part of the efforts made in this great gathering came from the organizers of the Global Forum on Law and Justice and Development. Laurence Coste, in charge of the Global Forum, invited several speakers from different parts of the world to participate in diverse panels. The UNESCO Chair of Bioethics and Human Rights was invited to participate in the “Business and the Protection of the General Interest and the Citizen”. The session was moderated by Anne-Charlotte Gros, who is the Executive Director of the Foundation of Civil Law. A variety of topics around policymaking in business accountability were covered, from money laundering to whistleblowers. However, our participation focused on the challenges for policymakers within the business-consumer interaction in the merging business activities of two types: monitoring of users’ digital trace and research in the form of Neuromarketing. Although there has been progress made in the discussion and regulation, we argued that it is not nearly enough, especially in context of vulnerable populations. Finally, we highlighted the essential components that make up any bioethical analysis in the context of research with human subjects, and the fact that these seem to be less considered in the real-world practices of business.

By Mariel Kalkach Aparicio

  • UNESCO Chair of Bioethics and Human Rights Affiliated Research Scholar
  • Research Assistant to the Interdisciplinary Clinical Bioethics Chair at the Faculty of Bioethics at Universidad Anahuac México
  • General Coordinator of BINCA
  • Research Specialist at Department of Neurology at the University of Wisconsin – Madison

 

Learn more about the Bioemetric Mirror Project

 

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