In the framework of permanent cooperation with the United Nations’ bodies and officials, our Association informed UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Development, Professor Surya Deva, for his upcoming thematic reports “Participation in Development” and “Peace for Development”.
The ARC’s submission, prepared by Olexiy Plotnikov, Kateryna Karpova, Olesya Tsybulko, and other experts and published on the official UN web-sources now, stressed the Crimean examples that one of the most dangerous threats to the right to development of individuals and peoples, which arises from contexts of breakdown of peace and security, is the illegal, illicit, and non-controlled usage of artificial intelligence (AI).
The ARC’s submission included the examples of Russia-committed information manipulations, and frauds with origins of AI-generated or manipulated digital content, and it creates strong risks for media and information literacy. It also pointed to the aggressor’s manipulations with AI systems in Crimea, including industrial espionage and propaganda, and the usage of such systems for the so-called “security sphere”.
The ARC’s submission added that the “state enterprises” in Crimea have been working on AI based on open-source neural networks with the aim of developing a drone management platform, and described relevant provocations at the illegal “Sevastopol state university,” which announced the presentation of a whole line of maritime drones and the underwater apparatus with elements of AI.
The ARC’s submission pointed out the Russian attempts to escalate terror against the civilian population to a new level by using swarm drone technologies with AI. In their developments regarding the combat use of AI, Russian structures are far from the elementary principles of law, both those proclaimed by the international bodies, submission emphasized.
The ARC’s submission also described the alarming trend of using aggressor’s enterprises, including those deployed in Crimea, to test AI technologies in the military sphere, the development of which is conducted in other countries. The latter obtain an “ideal platform” in Crimea for secretly testing such technologies, while openly declaring their “commitment”, or at least “neutrality”, toward international rules of warfare using AI.
The ARC’s submission added that the manipulations with AI, done by authoritarian regimes together with loyal corporations and other business structures, in conditions of interstate conflicts, war zones and occupied territories create new strong risks not to fundamental rights only, such as rights to life, to freedom and to privacy, but also to informational, educational, cultural and other collective rights, including indigenous rights and right to development, also they violate right of person not to be a victim on war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, deepening threats to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
The ARC’s submission pointed out that the examples of “Crimean business” participation as umbrella structures or as hubs for such provocations and preparations to them prove that the duty to protect international solidarity from those challenges to the right to development, which calls for racial discrimination and calls for aggressive war, genocide, and war crimes in interstate conflict conditions, which may be simplified by AI for committing actors, is also important for UN structures.
Let us add that our experts’ research proved that the Russia-controlled structures in Crimea, involved in the AI development and implementation, are the legitimate military target under such conditions.
