AI Ethics Across Borders: Values, Data, and Cultural Context

As Large Language Models (LLMs) become integrated into our daily activities, we face important questions about their development and deployment — those conversational AI systems are transforming how we work and communicate.

But whose values do they reflect, and who controls the data they're built on?

Each language carries unique concepts, values, and worldviews that reflect distinct cultural value systems and ways of understanding reality. When AI training prioritizes dominant languages and perspectives, we risk amplifying existing inequalities and losing the rich diversity that multiple linguistic traditions offer to our collective understanding of reality. Drawing from recent research initiatives like CIVICS, which examines how AI systems respond to culturally sensitive topics, we'll explore how values and cultural contexts shape these technologies.