U.N. official calls for moratorium on artificial intelligence tools that breach human rights
By Sammy Westfall,
The Washington Post
| 09. 15. 2021
The rapid evolution of artificial-intelligence-based technologies and their adoption by businesses and governments have outpaced efforts to hold them to human rights standards, Michelle Bachelet, the United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights, warned Wednesday.
She called for a moratorium on artificial intelligence systems that could put human rights at risk — at least until stronger safeguards are in place internationally.
“We cannot afford to continue playing catch-up regarding AI — allowing its use with limited or no boundaries or oversight, and dealing with the almost inevitable human rights consequences after the fact,” she said in a statement.
The remarks came alongside the publication of a report by the U.N. Human Rights Council analyzing the human rights risks posed by a range of AI-powered technologies — including profiling, automated decision-making and machine learning. The consequences of unfettered proliferation of such technologies could be “catastrophic,” Bachelet said.
The report also pointed out that data sets used by AI can have historical racial and ethnic biases embedded, which can perpetuate, or enhance, discrimination.
Many AI tools seek to predict outcomes, assess risk and...
Related Articles
By Alondra Nelson, Science | 09.11.2025
In the United States, the summer of 2025 will be remembered as artificial intelligence’s (AI’s) cruel summer—a season when the unheeded risks and dangers of AI became undeniably clear. Recent months have made visible the stakes of the unchecked use...
By Emma McDonald Kennedy
| 09.25.2025
In the leadup to the 2024 election, Donald Trump repeatedly promised to make IVF more accessible. He made the commitment central to his campaign, even referring to himself as the “father of IVF.” In his first month in office, Trump issued an executive order promising to expand IVF access. The order set a 90-day deadline for policy recommendations for “lowering costs and reducing barriers to IVF,” although it didn’t make any substantive reproductive healthcare policy changes.
The response to the...
Sir Francis Galton, 1890s, by Eveleen Myers (née Tennant)
npg.org
Public Domain via Wikipedia
As has been discussed in recent issues of Biopolitical Times (1, 2), there are, increasingly, companies that claim to be selling parents better babies by selecting the “best” embryos. These services don’t come cheap – think $50,000, or even more, for embryo testing, plus perhaps as much again for IVF and concomitant services. To most of us, that is extremely expensive...
By Johana Bhuiyan, The Guardian | 09.23.2025
In March 2021, a 25-year-old US citizen was traveling through Chicago’s Midway airport when they were stopped by US border patrol agents. Though charged with no crime, the 25-year-old was subjected to a cheek swab to collect their DNA, which...
