In November 2021, UNESCO's 193 Member States adopted the first global standard on AI ethics: the Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence. This landmark framework acknowledges the transformative opportunities AI presents — from healthcare diagnostics to personalized learning — while addressing profound ethical concerns such as bias amplification, climate degradation, and threats to human rights.

The Recommendation is built on four core values: respecting human dignity and rights, fostering just and peaceful societies, ensuring diversity and inclusiveness, and supporting environmental flourishing. It further outlines ten core principles grounded in a human-rights approach, including proportionality, safety and security, privacy and data protection, transparency and explainability, human oversight, sustainability, and fairness and non-discrimination. Each principle provides actionable guidance for the ethical development, deployment, and governance of AI systems.

Beyond values and principles, the Recommendation includes concrete policy action areas designed to help governments and stakeholders deal responsibly with AI's known and unknown impacts. UNESCO has also established a Global AI Ethics and Governance Observatory to serve as a resource for policymakers, regulators, academics, and civil society seeking solutions to AI's most pressing challenges. The full Recommendation is available in nine languages, underscoring its global reach and ambition.