Comment by UNESCO

Governments should adopt a regulatory framework that sets out a procedure, particularly for public authorities, to carry out ethical impact assessments on AI systems to predict consequences, mitigate risks, avoid harmful consequences, facilitate citizen participation and address societal challenges. The assessment should also establish appropriate oversight mechanisms, including auditability, traceability and explainability, which enable the assessment of algorithms, data and design processes, as well as include external review of AI systems. Ethical impact assessments should be transparent and open to the public, where appropriate. Such assessments should also be multidisciplinary, multi-stakeholder, multicultural, pluralistic and inclusive. The public authorities should be required to monitor the AI systems implemented and/or deployed by those authorities by introducing appropriate mechanisms and tools. [...] Member States should set clear requirements for AI system transparency and explainability so as to help ensure the trustworthiness of the full AI system life cycle. Such requirements should involve the design and implementation of impact mechanisms that take into consideration the nature of application domain, intended use, target audience and feasibility of each particular AI system.