New fundamental rights will need to be created to protect humanity from the ‘genuinely new risks’ posed by artificial intelligence and climate change, the master of the rolls proposed this week.

Giving the Blackstone Lecture at Pembroke College, Oxford, Sir Geoffrey Vos said that existing forms of domestic, EU or international regulation are ‘probably not competent to prevent AI being used inappropriately’ to make life-changing decisions. Likewise, current treaties and international conventions ‘seem to provide individuals in different parts of the world with insufficient rights to impose limits on businesses and governments that are probably doing too little to prevent global environmental damage’.

As a solution, the head of civil justice in England and Wales proposed creating a fundamental right to have human rather than machine oversight of ‘decisions requiring empathy or emotional intelligence’. He conceded that defining those decisions would pose difficulties. However, without such action, ‘AI will eventually decide, or advise on the outcomes, of even the most empathetic of human decisions, affecting human lives.

‘The environmental problem is even more difficult,’ Vos said, noting that 2,500 pieces of climate litigation are under way across the world. ‘The solution could be an additional individual right, but it could also be a more granular international treaty. Both seem to be very difficult to achieve, particularly in light of the events at the recent Cop 29 summit.’

 

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