G20 performance on digitalisation and artificial intelligence
The Rio Summit is a key opportunity for G20 members to address the digital divide and ensure AI governance benefits the Global South. Prioritising reduced inequalities and advanced opportunities in AI are essential
The G20 remains an important forum for advancing issues critically important to the Global South, with this year’s focus on the need for integrity and transparency in social media and the development and regulation of artificial intelligence. The G20 has remarkable influence on building a global framework and the Rio Summit offers a significant opportunity for the leaders to build on the work of their development ministers, who confirmed at their meeting in July that narrowing the digital divide and advancing secure, inclusive AI for good will boost sustainable growth and help reduce inequalities.
Deliberation
From 2008 to 2023, G20 summit communiqués produced 18,821 words on the digital economy (excluding non-economic terms, such as information and communications technology or the digital divide). They averaged 1,046 words (7%) per summit. They included 1,096 words on AI, for 61 words and under 1% per summit.
In the first phase, from 2008 to 2015, the digital economy averaged 221 words (2%) per summit. Then, in 2016, the number soared to 3,042 (19%). In the second phase, from 2016 to 2022, the G20 averaged 2,115 words (16%) on the digital economy, with the most words (5,029) in 2017 and the highest percentage (24%) in 2021. In 2022, the G20 produced 1,602 words (15%), which rose to 17% in 2023.
AI was addressed at five G20 summits, starting in 2016. It averaged 61 words (2%) per summit. The highest was in 2019 with 5%, followed by 2020 with 4%, then 2023 with 3%.
Decisions
The G20 has produced 142 collective, future-oriented, politically binding commitments on digitalisation, averaging eight per summit (including non-economic digital concepts and ICT). The first two digital commitments were made in 2015, taking 1% of the total. The peak came in 2016 with 48 commitments (23%). This was followed by 26 each in 2017 (5%) and 2021 (12%). The 2023 summit made 12 commitments (5%), with half on AI.
Compliance
The G20 Research Group has assessed members’ compliance with 11 digital-related commitments and 15 core digital commitments, starting from the 2015 summit. Compliance across all 26 commitments averaged 66%, lower than the G20’s overall average of 71%. The 15 core digital commitments averaged 68% compliance, and the 11 related commitments averaged 64%. The 15 core digital ones had increasing compliance over two phases, with five commitments averaging 50% from 2015 to 2016 and the remaining 10 averaging 77% from 2017 to 2022.
In contrast, the 11 digital-related commitments had declining compliance over two similar phases, with the six commitments in 2017 averaging 66% and the five from 2019 to 2022 averaging 62%.
Causes and corrections
The one assessed commitment on artificial intelligence had above average compliance of 73%. Among the economy-related commitments, the four with the highest compliance, on average, were those on the core economic subjects of tax, trade and financial literacy. The two digital-related commitments on health averaged 74%. However, the four on or related to gender had only 48%. This suggests a higher degree of compliance on commitments more closely related to the G20’s principal economic priorities.
By summit, those with the highest compliance (2020, 2022 and 2023), averaging 83%, had a relatively low number of 10 core digital commitments each and a relatively low percentage of total commitments of 5% each. The same ‘fewer for focus’ pattern also arose with the digital core conclusions, where the three highest complying summits’ digital conclusions averaged 14% of the communiqué.
To increase compliance with their digitalisation commitments, at Rio the G20 leaders should consider focusing on fewer communiqué words and commitments on digitalisation, make more commitments on artificial intelligence and infuse digitalisation into their commitments on economic subjects and on health. They could also commit – for the first time – to making digitalisation and its AI component work for the Rio Summit’s priorities of equality for women and girls, clean energy and climate action.
Conclusion
The Rio Summit offers a tremendous opportunity to gain critical alignment among G20 members on narrowing the digital divide and ensuring that the rules on AI governance take into account the needs of the Global South. Reducing inequalities while advancing opportunities must be a priority in the booming regulatory landscape surrounding
data and AI. At Rio, G20 leaders could enshrine principles related to reducing inequalities, including shrinking the digital divide while advancing the inclusive use of data for development, and harnessing safe, secure and inclusive AI for good and for all.
