A.I. MPACT ASSESSMENTS
This report collates resources and guidelines on AI impact assessments to support practitioners and policymakers seeking to design or implement safeguard against possible harms posed by certain AI technologies.
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Mapping the state of AI policy and regulation in Africa
The growing appreciation of the risks posed by unchecked uses of AI has fuelled interest among policymakers and practitioners in the use of AI impact assessments as a safeguard against potential harms.
Impact assessments evaluate any potential or actual harm caused by something, such as a project or plan, and aim to correct or mitigate the harm.
While critics have argued that impact assessments are a limited tool that do not adequately protect against human rights abuses in the domain of AI, the complexity of AI regulation suggests that effective oversight is only possible through multi-layered approaches that use a range of tools and mechanisms to offset each one’s limitations.
There is a growing body of research on how to effectively develop and implement an impact assessment in the context of AI. We collate a selection of these resources, sourced from global experts on the human rights implications of AI, that provide guidance and insight to practitioners looking to design and implement impact assessments of their own.
Explore the resources below, or access the full report here.
Guiding practitioners seeking to protect human rights
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KEY FINDINGS
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Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights
United Nations (2011)
Part II of the guiding principles provides for the corporate responsibility to respect human rights. It recommends that businesses conduct human rights due diligence processes to identify and mitigate the adverse human rights impacts of their activities. It provides that these processes should involve meaningful consultation with potentially affected groups. Assessments should be taken at regular intervals.
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Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence
European Commission 2020
A High-level Expert Group of the European Commission published the Ethics Guidelines in 2019 to enable organisations and companies to conduct self-assessments on AI systems being developed, deployed, procured, or used. Following that, in 2020, the group developed the Assessment list for Trustworthy AI which translates the ethics guidelines into an accessible and dynamic checklist that guides developers and deployers of AI in implementing such principles in practice.