Former Socceroo and human rights advocate Craig Foster AM delivered Curtin University\u2019s 10th Annual Human Rights Lecture last night, urging audiences to consider humanity\u2019s place amid war, inequality, technology and economics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mr Foster\u2019s address \u2014 Reclaiming Humanity: Placing People at the Centre of a Fractured Rights and Economic Architecture \u2014 <\/em>outlined his vision for a fundamental reorientation of human rights in the age of war, extreme inequality, and the emerging issue of data ownership and AI. He also explored the future of human rights in sport, particularly in his own field of global football. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe founding promise of human rights is that every person carries an inherent dignity that no state, market or machine can take away,\u201d Mr Foster said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is not eroding by accident but being dismantled deliberately system by system, the human quietly removed from the centre of each and replaced by something else: a data point, a market, a weapon, an exception.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEverything I describe has been built by human choices and can therefore be rebuilt.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr Foster told the audience the rise of artificial intelligence had made the question of humanity even more urgent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cArtificial intelligence is being built from the collective output of humanity \u2014 our art, journalism, scholarship and conversation \u2014 without consent or compensation, while algorithmic systems already decide human fates, stripped of judgement and mercy,\u201d Mr Foster said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Associate Professor Yirga Gelaw Woldeyes<\/a>, Director of Curtin University\u2019s Centre for Human Rights Education,<\/a> said it was an honour to have Mr Foster deliver this year\u2019s Annual Human Rights Lecture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs conflict, economic uncertainty and the ethical challenges of AI test human rights, Craig\u2019s lecture highlighted the need to keep people, dignity and justice at the centre of decision making,\u201d Associate Professor Woldeyes said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n