From 14 to 17 September 2026, the 4th UNESCO Global Forum on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (AI) took place in Saudi Arabia, convening leaders, policymakers, experts, and stakeholders from around the world, aimed at highlighting achievements in ethics of AI since the adoption of UNESCO’s 2021 Recommendation on the Ethics of AI. Co-hosted by UNESCO and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, represented by the Saudi Data and AI Authority and the International Centre for AI Research and Ethics, this event served as a platform for global dialogue, collaboration, and policy innovation on the ethical dimensions of AI.
Ensuring that AI development remains ethical, inclusive, and responsive to people’s needs is increasingly important, globally. With that in mind, Caribbean countries were part of this critical exchange, with countries like The Bahamas, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago contributing perspectives across discussions on AI readiness, public-sector capacity, social inequalities and environmental sustainability. In addition, AI Ethics Action Cohort members from Curaçao, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago engaged in expert training on UNESCO’s AI ethics tools and explored their application in national contexts.
Representatives from the Caribbean voiced their own perspectives and views concerning the various issues under discussion:
In practice, the corpora behind the leading models contain very little of the Caribbean: our history, our jurisprudence and our spoken language are largely absent. This is not bias in the conventional sense. It is an omission. A system asked about my country will answer from elsewhere, and a citizen addressing it in our own voice may not be understood at all.
Hon. Wayde A. Watson, Minister of State for Innovation and National Development of The Bahamas
In education, our position is: AI is a tool that mimics human behavior. It is humans that originate critical thinking, and we must take care that it remains that way. Therefore, AI should remain as a tool that aids our students to think more critically, not replace the need to be critical thinkers. AI should be a tool that reports to our teachers, not replace them.
read more: https://www.unesco.org/en/articles/caribbean-voices-4th-unesco-global-forum-ethics-ai?hub=701
