The urgent necessity to take a critical approach to the use of artificial intelligence for analysis and prediction of human behavior and social processes.
Based on technological progress, the scale and scope of data collection concerning all aspects of human life has constantly expanded: data about communications between people, about their movements, their financial transactions, their activities on the Internet, their work and personal interests. Collection and analysis of such data by transnational corporations, performed with the stated aim of better targeting of advertising and optimizing information flow has made the private lives of people more and more permeable and transparent. Hence it is urgently necessary to protect the population from every form of encroachment on the security of their confidential and private information*.
Another cause of concern is the growing tendency to regard human beings as mere objects whose behavior is biologically predetermined and predictable and can be simulated by means of artificial intelligence, rather than recognizing them as true individuals with unique personalities, endowed with free will and self-consciousness. The result is to undermine the dignity of the human personality.
It is absolutely essential to preserve the concept of the unique value of every human individual, and to prevent the creation of a system of total control over human beings. It is also necessary to take a critical attitude toward applications of artificial intelligence systems for analysis and prognosis of human actions and social processes. Human individuals must not be treated as entities defined by some list of measurable characteristics, and whose behavior is predictable — like that of a machine.
* Article 2 of the Charter on the Preservation of Digital Heritage, adopted by the General Conference of UNESCO on October 15, 2003.
