Blog 2 – The Global Digital Compact’s Call to Action in the Age of AI

The United Nations (UN) Global Digital Compact (GDC) emerged from an extensive global consultation process, including recommendations from over 6,000 global entities across the public and private sectors, civil society, and academia, alongside input from over 160 governments. It was established to fill the ‘governance gap’ across the digital ecosystem, providing a framework for the safe development of emerging technologies – most notably Artificial Intelligence (AI), which has come to be known as the defining technology of our times. The GDC reflects the culmination of meaningful global participation, amplifying voices from diverse backgrounds in discussions about the technologies of the future. It presents a “step-change towards more effective, inclusive, networked multilateralism.”

The GDC reflects the critical value of multi-stakeholder approaches to technology governance in three parts:

1. Transformative technologies, like AI, are inherently global in their impact and their supply chains. Thus, a multilateral approach is necessary to address the transnational harms and ensure the benefits serve all of humanity.
2. Perspectives across technical expertise, public policy, human rights frameworks, civil society, and industry are all crucial to designing a global governance plan for technologies that have the potential to shape so many facets of social life.
3. Meaningful global participation requires intentional platforming of diverse voices and a diligent process of consensus building.

A Call to Action: Fostering Global Dialogue on AI Governance

The GDC outlines several core principles, objectives, and actions, including the initiation of a Global Dialogue on AI Governance. This dialogue will engage stakeholders across the public and private sectors and take place alongside existing UN conferences and meetings. Beyond this UN-facilitated dialogue, this recommendation can serve as an inspiration to the broader field to facilitate dialogue on topics that require a range of global perspectives.

Days after the landmark adoption of the Global Digital Compact, the Centre for Trustworthy Technology (CTT) gathered a body of global AI and trust leaders for an event on ‘The Future of AI: Perspectives from the Global Community’. This event convened leaders from all over the world to discuss some of the most salient topics in AI. Three panels covered Global Governance, Culture Value Alignment, and Supply Chains. Each panel put leaders with diverse regional focuses in communication with each other to discover convergences and divergences in approaches and cultural values.

These conversations reaffirmed the importance of global dialogue as a prerequisite to consensus-building and collaboration. Each panel platformed the nuance of working across diverse communities and the technology life cycle, from design to development to deployment. Leaders highlighted many of the objectives of the GDC through their work and organizations, which include developing international partnerships on AI, capacity-building to develop education and training programs in the digital sector, designing culturally and linguistically inclusive AI systems, and more. Each of these objectives is outlined in the GDC and is pushed forward by the dedication of civil society and public-private partnerships worldwide.

Key Recommendations on AI Governance

The GDC puts forward several vital recommendations emphasizing the need for AI governance.

Firstly, the GDC calls for the establishment of a multidisciplinary, independent international scientific panel on AI, ensuring balanced geographic representation. This body would be instrumental in deepening an evidence-based understanding of AI’s far-reaching impacts on society. It would undertake rigorous assessments of AI-related risks, opportunities, and societal effects by drawing on insights from established national, regional, and international initiatives, as well as existing research networks.

Additionally, the GDC highlights the need for standards development organizations to collaborate to create and promote globally interoperable AI standards. These standards must adhere to the highest principles of safety, reliability, and sustainability, while embedding robust human rights protections.

The GDC emphasizes the importance of developing international partnerships to build capacity in AI. These partnerships would aim to create education and training programs, expand access to essential resources like open AI models, systems, and datasets, and facilitate AI model training and development. Additionally, the Compact underscores the need to support the inclusion of micro-, small-, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) in the digital economy, ensuring that these smaller entities can actively participate in and benefit from AI-driven innovations.

Finally, the GDC underscores the importance of equity and inclusion, with a focus on promoting safe, secure, and trustworthy AI systems that prioritize the protection and preservation of linguistic and cultural diversity. It calls for AI systems to be inclusive at every stage, from design to implementation, ensuring that they respect and preserve the richness of human expression across different regions and languages.

Moving Forward with Trustworthy AI

The GDC’s focus on evidence-based AI governance, fostering international partnerships, globally interoperable standards, and ensuring inclusion across linguistic and cultural divides is an emphatic call of action—urging global stakeholders to unite in guaranteeing that AI and other transformative technologies serve all of humanity. As we move forward, the principles outlined in the GDC will be critical to navigating the complex, evolving, and nuanced challenges of AI. The journey toward a collaborative, secure, and trustworthy digital future has begun—but it requires a continued and conscious purpose-oriented global effort.