The Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al of the Unit­ed Na­tions has called on tech­nol­o­gy firms to ad­dress the is­sue of racial bias in ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence (AI).

An­to­nio Guter­res made the call as the world ob­serves The In­ter­na­tion­al Day for the Elim­i­na­tion of Racial Dis­crim­i­na­tion on March 21, 2024.  This year’s theme is linked to the In­ter­na­tion­al Decade for Peo­ple of African De­scent (2015-2024).  It sought to un­der­score the point that peo­ple of African de­scent rep­re­sent a dis­tinct group, whose hu­man rights must be pro­mot­ed and pro­tect­ed.

In­ter­na­tion­al Day is ob­served on the an­niver­sary of the day in 1960 (March 21) that the po­lice in Sharpeville, South Africa, opened fire and killed 69 peo­ple at a peace­ful demon­stra­tion against apartheid "pass laws”.

The 2024 theme for the In­ter­na­tion­al Day for the Elim­i­na­tion of Racial Dis­crim­i­na­tion is, A Decade of Recog­ni­tion, Jus­tice, and De­vel­op­ment: Im­ple­men­ta­tion of the In­ter­na­tion­al Decade for Peo­ple of African De­scent.

Ac­cord­ing to the UN, racial dis­crim­i­na­tion and the lega­cies of slav­ery and colo­nial­ism con­tin­ue to de­stroy lives and cur­tail op­por­tu­ni­ties, pre­vent­ing bil­lions of peo­ple from en­joy­ing their full hu­man rights and free­doms.

In his mes­sage to mark the in­ter­na­tion­al day, Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al Guter­res ob­serves:

“Peo­ple of African de­scent face a unique his­to­ry of sys­temic and in­sti­tu­tion­al­ized racism, and pro­found chal­lenges to­day.”

Mr Guter­res’ high­light­ing of racism in AI comes on the heels of grow­ing recog­ni­tion of the in­her­ent bias in AI. Stud­ies are show­ing that AI is in­formed by the da­ta build­ing it, which at times can be racist, sex­ist and flawed. 

Ac­cord­ing to a study pub­lished in Ju­ly 2022 ti­tled, “Ro­bots En­act Ma­lig­nant Stereo­types”, a ro­bot trained by AI was more like­ly to as­so­ciate Black men with be­ing crim­i­nals, or women with be­ing home­mak­ers.  

“We rec­om­mend that ro­bot learn­ing meth­ods that phys­i­cal­ly man­i­fest stereo­types or oth­er harm­ful out­comes be paused, re­worked, or even wound down when ap­pro­pri­ate, un­til out­comes can be proven safe, ef­fec­tive, and just,” the au­thors of the study wrote.

In ad­di­tion to his chal­lenge to tech­nol­o­gy firms, the UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al al­so urged gov­ern­ments around the world to elim­i­nate harm­ful poli­cies and sys­tems that pro­mote racial dis­crim­i­na­tion, and es­pe­cial­ly against peo­ple of African de­scent.

The fol­low­ing is the full text Mr Guter­res’ mes­sage…

MES­SAGE BY THE U.N. SEC­RE­TARY-GEN­ER­AL ON THE IN­TER­NA­TION­AL DAY FOR THE ELIM­I­NA­TION OF RACIAL DIS­CRIM­I­NA­TION, 21 March 2024

Racism is an evil in­fect­ing coun­tries and so­ci­eties around the world—a deeply en­trenched lega­cy of colo­nial­ism and en­slave­ment.

The re­sults are dev­as­tat­ing: op­por­tu­ni­ties stolen; dig­ni­ty de­nied; rights vi­o­lat­ed; lives tak­en and lives de­stroyed.

Racism is rife, but it im­pacts com­mu­ni­ties dif­fer­ent­ly.

The theme of this year’s In­ter­na­tion­al Day for the Elim­i­na­tion of Racial Dis­crim­i­na­tion high­lights this, fo­cussing on peo­ple of African de­scent, recog­ni­tion, jus­tice and de­vel­op­ment. 

Peo­ple of African de­scent face a unique his­to­ry of sys­temic and in­sti­tu­tion­al­ized racism, and pro­found chal­lenges to­day. We must re­spond to that re­al­i­ty—earn­ing from, and build­ing on, the tire­less ad­vo­ca­cy of peo­ple of African de­scent.

That in­cludes gov­ern­ments ad­vanc­ing poli­cies and oth­er mea­sures to elim­i­nate racism against peo­ple of African de­scent. 

And tech firms ur­gent­ly ad­dress­ing racial bias in ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence.

On this Day, let’s com­mit to work to­geth­er to build a world of dig­ni­ty, jus­tice and equal op­por­tu­ni­ty for every com­mu­ni­ty, every­where.