The Future Society participated in the first Regional Forum on AI in Latin America and the Caribbean, organized by UNESCO in partnership with the Brazilian Network Information Center (NIC.br) through its Regional Center for Studies on the Development of the Information Society (Cetic.br), and the Brazilian Government, through its Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MRE) and the Ministry of Science, Technology, Innovation and Communications (MCTIC). 

In recent years, several countries have been designing public policies and establishing national AI strategies to drive the ethical adoption of AI technologies. Brazil and Chile, among other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, are currently in the process of developing their national AI strategy, and have notably launched a consultative process to further engage civil society. Other countries such as Costa Rica are strengthening their digital infrastructure with newly built data access frameworks.

In Latin American and Caribbean, the development of AI applications and policies vary across societies and economies, as well as institutional and governance frameworks. In this regard, the Forum brought together key stakeholders from the region from the public and private sector, technical community, media and academia, civil society and international organizations to facilitate dialogue on the potential benefits and challenges of AI. 

The Forum provided a unique opportunity to bring together the emerging AI community from Latin America and the Caribbean, and learn from the experience of countries that have successfully established national AI strategies in and outside of the region. The Future Society was proud to be part of this Forum to present its AI Civic Forum, a multi-stakeholder platform to proactively engage people around the world in discussions on AI ethics and governance, and support UNESCO’s standard-setting instrument for ethical AI, as well as its Global Data Access Framework.