03/05/2024 – The 2024 OECD Ministerial Council Meeting (MCM) adopted revisions to the historic standard OECD Principles on Artificial Intelligence (AI). In response to recent developments in AI technologies, including the emergence of general-purpose and generative AI, the updated Principles more directly address challenges associated with AI involving privacy, intellectual property rights, security, and information integrity.
With 47 adherents, including the EU, and a broad scope that ensures their applicability to AI developments worldwide, the OECD AI Principles provide a blueprint for policy frameworks on how to manage AI risks and shape AI policies. As the first intergovernmental standard on AI, they promote innovative and trustworthy AI that respects human rights and democratic values.
The OECD AI Policy Observatory, which has been tracking the Principles since they were first adopted in 2019, shows that venture capital investment in AI startups has increased ninefold, demand for AI skills has soared by 130%, and the share of large firms using AI, on average across the OECD, has almost doubled to more than four times that of small firms. These developments coincide with significant policy attention and action, as evidenced by over 1,000 AI initiatives in more than 70 countries and jurisdictions.
It is becoming increasingly imperative to develop and deploy AI systems to increase productivity, accelerate scientific research, promote environmental sustainability, and improve healthcare and education while respecting human rights and democratic values. But the risks to privacy, security, equity, and well-being are growing at an unprecedented speed and scale, morphing into real harms such as perpetuating bias and discrimination, creating and spreading misinformation, and distorting public discourse and markets.
Key elements of the OECD revisions, which ensure that the Principles remain relevant, robust and fit for purpose, include:
- Address safety concerns, so that if AI systems have the potential to cause undue harm or exhibit unwanted behavior, robust mechanisms and safeguards exist to safely circumvent, repair, and/or decommission them
- Reflecting the growing importance of combating misinformation and disinformation and preserving the integrity of information in the context of generative AI
- Focus on responsible business conduct throughout the AI system lifecycle, involving cooperation with AI knowledge and resource providers, AI system users and other stakeholders
- Clarifying what information about AI systems constitutes transparency and responsible disclosure
- Explicitly referring to environmental sustainability, a concern that has grown considerably in importance over the last five years
- Highlighting the need for jurisdictions to work together to promote interoperable governance and policy environments for AI, as the number of AI policy initiatives increases worldwide
“The OECD has been helping to shape digital policy agendas for decades, through evidence-based recommendations and extensive multilateral and multi-stakeholder cooperation,” Mathias Cormann, Secretary-General of the OECD “The OECD AI Principles are a global reference for AI policymaking, facilitating global policy interoperability and fostering human-centred innovation. The revised OECD AI Principles will provide a blueprint for global AI policy interoperability and enable policymakers to keep pace with technology, addressing general-purpose and generative AI and its impacts on our economies and societies.”
The OECD Council Recommendation on Artificial Intelligence, which includes the OECD AI Principles, contains definitions that underpin and promote international interoperability. The definitions of an AI system and its lifecycle are used around the world, including in the European Union, Japan and the United States. These definitions also inform the work of the United Nations and the EU-US Trade and Technology Council.
For further information, journalists may contact Reemt Seibel to the OECD Media Division (+33 1 45 24 97 00).
Working with over 100 countries, the OECD is a global policy forum that promotes policies to preserve individual freedoms and improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world.
