UNESCO Releases Guidelines on AI Governance for Educational Purposes

UNESCO published its first guidance on the use of Generative AI (GenAI) for education on Sep 7, urging governmental agencies to regulate the technology's use, including data privacy protection and setting an age limit for users.

Launched in November by Microsoft-backed OpenAI, GenAI chatbot ChatGPT has become the world's fastest-growing app to date, prompting the release of competitors such as Google's Bard.

Students have also taken to GenAI, which can generate anything from essays to mathematical calculations with just a few lines of instructions.

"We are struggling to align the speed of education system transformation to the speed of change in technological progress and advancement in these machine learning models," said Stefania Giannini, assistant director-general for education.

"In many cases, governments and schools are embracing a radically unfamiliar technology that even leading technologists do not claim to understand," she explained.

UNESCO emphasised the importance of government-sanctioned AI curricula for school education, technical and vocational education, and training in a 64-page report.

"GenAI providers should be held accountable for ensuring adherence to core values and lawful purposes, respecting intellectual property, and upholding ethical practises, while also preventing the spread of disinformation and hate speech," according to UNESCO.