Rethinking Social Justice in the Context of AI: Key Challenges

Reflecting on both institutional and scientific perspectives, the Chair engages in a dialogue that seeks to define a pathway towards equity, justice, and diversity as well as to provide multifaceted and structural governance responses that promote social justice values within AI systems.

The conference will begin by examining the elements that should be prioritized in order to link AI to human rights protection frameworks, with a view to highlighting how proposed regulations address the current dichotomy between the two. It will also highlight ongoing efforts to recognize AI’s human rights implications and to consider solutions that aim to reverse the discrimination and invisibility of groups and communities that are being consistently marginalized by biased AI systems. We will also discuss topics ranging from power dynamics to social good, as well as representation and responsible practices. Our aim is to emphasize the importance of citizen participation, not only in developing concrete responses to the systemic effects of AI, but also in our ability to prioritize a human rights-based approach.

Given the pragmatic and scientific dimensions of this work, it can only benefit from the participation of public sector actors whose opinions, knowledge, and professional training will serve to enrich the debate on human rights in AI systems.

About the chair

The Social Justice and Artificial Intelligence Chair – Foundation Abeona/ENS/OBVIA is a research chair that provides an opportunity for a visiting professor to develop works on artificial intelligence (AI) and social justice for one year and to interact with researchers from the Paris and Quebec ecosystems in the fields of AI, humanities, social sciences and health.

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Karine Gentelet, chairholder

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Associate Professor in the Department of Social Sciences at the Université du Québec en Outaouais, Karine Gentelet is the second holder of the chair.

Her research interests and publications focus on the recognition of human rights of Indigenous Peoples, uses of digital technology and artificial intelligence to support social justice, the ethics of research in an Indigenous context, and the social responsibility of researchers.

She is co-director of a research axis on international relations, humanitarian action and human rights at OBVIA and she also leads a research project on marginalized populations and artificial intelligence within a broader international research project on the empowerment of judicial actors using artificial intelligence at the Cyberjustice Laboratory at Université de Montréal.

Professor Gentelet is also a researcher at the Centre interuniversitaire d’études et de recherches autochtones (CIERA), at the Centre de recherche en droit prospectif (CRDP) of Université de Montréal and at the Laboratoire de recherche sur les enjeux relatifs aux femmes autochtones – Mikwatisiw (UQAT). Finally, she has been strongly active in the promotion and defense of human rights with Amnesty International since 2007.