• Yerdaulet Rakhmatulla, a Kazakhstani student, recently completed the challenging task of translating the comprehensive course “Defending Human Rights in the Age of Artificial Intelligence”.
• The course was created by UNITAR and UNESCO, with translation coordination by SALTO Participation & Information Resource Centre (SALTO PI).
• The “Defending Human Rights in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” is topically about AI and AI translation also played a role in the translation process. 
• Yerdaulet thinks that the course is essential for Kazakh youth because they need to be taught about digital rights and how they interconnect with universal human rights in the real world. He hopes that his work will inspire other young Kazakhs to take an interest and get involved in digital and human rights.

“Defending Human Rights in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” is a course about AI, but – in an interesting twist – AI also played a role in the translation process. AI first translated the original English, and that output was then used by the human translators making the final translation. In this way, AI helped prepare materials about itself and human rights in Kazakh.

Since we already had a baseline translation made from AI, it was easier to work with and translate. The quality of the translation of the AI was high. I was surprised. The dataset and results will help to develop terminology and general information about AI in the Kazakh language.

Yerdaulet believes the younger generations do not see a difference between the real and digital worlds. He thinks that the “Defending Human Rights in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” course is essential for Kazakh youth because they need to be taught about digital rights and how they interconnect with universal human rights in the real world.

Yerdaulet hopes that his work will inspire other young Kazakhs to take an interest and get involved in digital and human rights.

I hope this is only the beginning of making information on digital rights and human rights as accessible as it should be. This will open the gate to future generations to build informational products. Our community will grow, and we’ll contribute all together. - Yerdaulet Rakhmatulla

The United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) is a dedicated training arm of the United Nations. In 2021, UNITAR trained 370,139 learners around the world to support their actions for a better future. In addition to our headquarters in Geneva, we have offices in Hiroshima, New York, Bonn and various networks around the world.

One of the eight divisions of UNITAR, the Division for Prosperity, based in the Hiroshima Office and Geneva Headquarters, seeks to shape an inclusive, sustainable and prosperous world. World-class learning and knowledge-sharing services on entrepreneurship, leadership, finance and trade, digital technologies, and nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation are offered. We empower individuals from developing countries – especially women and young people – to address inequalities. Our alumni are making a difference in least-developed countries, countries emerging from conflict, and small-island developing states.