Human Rights in the AI ​​Era

 

Human rights remain just as important in the age of artificial intelligence (AI) – if not even more so. The use of AI systems brings new challenges, risks, and ethical questions that can have direct impacts on people’s rights and freedoms. 

 

  1. Protection of Human Dignity: AI systems must not violate human dignity or treat people as mere data points.
  2. Prevention of Discrimination: AI can inherit or amplify biases from data. Human rights ensure equal treatment for all.
  3. Preservation of Privacy: AI often processes large amounts of personal data – human rights protect individuals from surveillance and data misuse.
  4. Accountability and Transparency: People must be able to understand how AI decisions are made – a right to explanation.
  5. Protection from Abuse of Power: Governments or corporations could use AI for control – human rights serve as limits to such power.
  6. Freedom of Expression: Algorithms can influence what content we see – human rights ensure free access to information and the right to express opinions.
  7. Workers’ Rights and Fair Labor: Automation through AI can threaten jobs – human rights demand fair working conditions and just transitions.
  8. Access to Technology: Everyone should have equal opportunities to benefit from AI – otherwise, new forms of inequality may arise.
  9. Right to Education and Information: In a world shaped by AI, digital education is essential to ensure participation.
  10. Protection from Automated Violence: The use of AI in weapons or surveillance must be regulated from a human rights perspective.

This text was read as part of the performance “Human Rights in the AI Era” in front of the Volksbühne at Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz on 

February 26, 2025.

The performance intertwined language, body, and digital presence into a multilayered moment between manifesto and meditation. Set against the symbolic architecture of the Volksbühne—a place where questions of freedom, power, and humanity have been negotiated for over a century—the text became a voice within the tension between humanness and artificial intelligence.

At its core, it addressed the shifting meaning of human rights in an era where the notion of the “human” itself grows increasingly indeterminate: Where does the human end, and where does the machine begin—the one that continues, mirrors, or transforms it? The reading did not mark a conclusion but opened a space of discourse—a moment in which art, ethics, and technology converge to reflect on the future of rights, responsibility, and perception.

Would you like me to refine this translation further — for example, to make it sound more poetic or more academic in tone?