UNESCO AI Ethics Residency
Somerset House Studios and UNESCO's new joint residency programme, commissioning three international artists to create new online works critically engaging with intercultural ideas around AI and ethics, supported by a remote residency. All three artists will take part in UNESCO’s annual Global Forum on the Ethics of AI, sharing their research and works in progress to an audience of international policy makers, before presenting the final works on Somerset House’s online platform Channel.
The opportunity builds on the previous Somerset House Studios’ residency PATH AI in partnership with The Alan Turing Institute and UAL’s Creative Computing Institute, which took place in 2022. Three artists were commissioned to make new works exploring ideas of privacy, agency and trust in human-AI ecosystems, with Nouf Alyowaysir’s commission Ana Mein Wen (Where Am I From?) winning the Lumen Prize for Moving Image in 2023 and released by The New York Times Op-Docs series in 2024, and Juan Covelli’s Los Caídos (The Fallen) receiving an Honorary Mention in the New Animation Art category at Ars Electronica in 2025.
This initiative is supported by the European Union-funded project “Supporting Member States in lmplementing UNESCO's Recommendation on the Ethics of Al through lnnovative Tools”.
Background
The rapid rise in artificial intelligence (AI) has created many opportunities globally, from facilitating healthcare diagnoses to enabling human connections through social media, and creating labour efficiencies through automated tasks. However, these rapid changes also raise profound ethical concerns, including the potential for AI systems to embed biases, contribute to climate degradation, threaten human rights and more. Such risks have already begun to compound on top of existing inequalities, resulting in further harm to already marginalized groups.
UNESCO’s Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence is the first-ever globally recognised standard on AI ethics of its kind, adopted by 193 Member States in November 2021. Central to the Recommendation are four core values which lay the foundations for AI systems that work for the good of humanity, individuals, societies and the environment; Respect, protection and promotion of human rights and fundamental freedoms and human dignity; living in peaceful, just, and interconnected societies; ensuring diversity and inclusiveness; environment and ecosystem flourishing.
Laying out a set of core principles to support a human-rights centered approach to the ethics of AI, the Recommendation identifies a set of policy areas for Member States to operationalize these values and principles, covering areas including culture, education and labour. UNESCO’s annual Global Forum on the Ethics of AI is a high-level event which progresses these Recommendations, aiming to advance the state-of-the-art knowledge of the challenges raised by AI technologies, and facilitate learning among governments and other stakeholders.
A summary of Key Facts from UNESCOs Recommendations is available here.
Selected Artists
Header image: Ana Min Wein (Where am I From)?, Nouf Aljowaysir, 2022. Developed with the support of Somerset House, The Alan Turing Institute and UAL Creative Computing Institute, in residence at Somerset House Studios.