Ungovernable or humanitarian experimentation? Generative AI as an accountability issue

In the summer of 2023, as the UN convened to discuss generative AI, there were calls for an ethical and responsible governance framework to deal with risk and harm. In the humanitarian sector, it has been suggested that generative AI could help with content, participation, funding, administration, and stakeholder mapping but also that this technology may be 'the next AK-47'. Regardless of which position one adopts, generative AI has significant implications for humanitarian governance. In this blog, Kristin Bergtora Sandvik and Kristoffer Lidén discuss the type of accountability challenges generative AI, such as Chat GPT, represents for humanitarian governance.