The UAE has signed the Children First Declaration at the Paris Peace Forum, joining dozens of countries in a pledge to protect children from untested AI models, The National reported on 10 November. French President Emmanuel Macron promoted the declaration at the forum, an annual gathering he launched in 2018 to improve global governance.
Key points
- Macron said AI should be tested, evaluated and authorised before it is made available to children.
- Signatories pledged work across five areas of children’s well-being, aiming for results by 2045.
- OpenAI, Anthropic and AI safety organisations are expected to pledge €8 million ($8.9 million) at the Child Summit for research and tools.
Macron sets a test-before-use expectation
Macron described the countries’ commitment in terms of a condition on access: “no AI should be placed in the hands of children without first being tested, evaluated and therefore authorised”. His formulation puts evaluation before a child encounters a system. The National reported his remarks as a description of the declaration’s commitment, rather than as the text of a national law.
Australia, Egypt, South Africa, Spain and Germany are among the other signatories named alongside the UAE. The UN also signed. Their participation gives the declaration a reach beyond the states involved in the earlier children’s rights coalition, which France, Spain, Kenya and Australia launched during the latest UN General Assembly in New York. That coalition had the backing of 26 states and the UN.
Macron called the declaration a “major step forward”. His statement concerned what countries had agreed should happen before AI reaches children. The work announced alongside it extends to children’s health and welfare more broadly, with a target date far beyond the forum itself.
Children First signatories look towards 2045
The signatories pledged to expand their work across health, nutrition, education, protection and psychosocial well-being in the digital age. They aim to achieve tangible results by 2045. Those areas place the AI commitment within a wider children’s agenda, rather than limiting the declaration to model testing alone.
The declaration was announced ahead of the Child Summit, an event convened by the Paris Peace Forum around AI and children. The summit aims to give AI actors indicators and best practices. It also aims to establish the Action Hub for Children, a platform intended to bring the public and private sectors together.
Forum organisers said the initiatives were intended to encourage co-ordination among local and national authorities, international organisations and private companies on children’s rights and well-being. That ambition involves organisations with different responsibilities: governments can set public policy, while the companies building AI systems control many of the products and tools children may encounter.
OpenAI and Anthropic join €8 million pledge
The Child Summit will also see OpenAI, Anthropic and leading AI safety organisations pledge €8 million ($8.9 million), The National reported. The planned funding is for research and tools examining how AI interacts with child development. It is a separate undertaking from the declaration signed by countries and the UN.
Philippe Etienne, president of the Paris Peace Forum, said the initiative was intended to give researchers resources to understand how technologies including AI affect children’s development. He linked that work to protecting children from risk and informing policy grounded in scientific evidence.
Macron also received experts from a government-appointed commission at the Elysée Palace before going to the Child Summit. They delivered a report on AI safety for children. The palace said the report extended earlier discussions about the effects of digital technology on democracy into generative AI.
