Feature story
Ecumenical and civil society representatives will meet in Berlin, 13-14 April, to discuss action towards “Our Common Future: Advocating for Digital Rights and AI Accountability.” In preparing for the symposium, organizers asked diverse members of their networks, “What is a critical issue for digital justice that must be addressed, and how?”
The resulting video statements acknowledge opportunities and efficiencies that come with digital technology while highlighting serious problems, from increasing use in war and conflict to racial bias and deepening information disorder. Addressing these negative impacts calls for urgent individual and collective action.
Accountability and transparency must guide AI's ethical development
Rev. Merlyn Hyde Riley, general secretary of the Jamaica Baptist Union and vice moderator of the World Council of Churches (WCC) central committee, acknowledges AI's significant benefits while raising urgent ethical concerns about its unchecked development.
“So as church, I believe that what we are doing is correct—to raise awareness, to educate persons, to hold each other accountable, to ensure that the world is a better place for every single one of us.” – Rev. Merlyn Hyde Riley
“AI must be transparent, accountable, and factual”
Rawan Damen, director general of Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism outlines three core demands: transparency in the disclosure of AI-generated or AI-assisted content; accountability from major technology companies over the use of data, copyright, and the spread of mis- and disinformation; and a commitment to factual information as the bedrock of any AI system.
“If all AI systems are giving priorities to non-facts or dealing with facts and non-facts, and facts and mis-disinformation as the same, then what is the content that we will be giving our kids and the generations to come in the future?” – Rawan Damen
“AI must not become an engine of systemic racism”
Dr Masiiwa Gunda, WCC programme executive for programmatic responses on overcoming racism, highlights his concern over the nature of the data on which AI systems are trained. These systems do not generate new knowledge; instead, they reproduce and scale existing historical information — much of which reflects centuries of racial prejudice, discrimination, and exclusion embedded in social structures, policies, and institutions.
“AI systems are inherently racist because they draw on a racially contaminated database where racialized communities are experiencing prejudice and discrimination at the hands of enforcers of systems.” – Dr Masiiwa Gunda
“AI must serve the many, not the few”
Rev. Jackline Makena, vice moderator of the WCC Commission on Faith and Order and lecturer at St Paul's University, argues that AI is not merely a technological challenge but a profound moral and justice issue. Her central concern is that AI, if left ungoverned, will deepen existing inequalities — particularly across the Global South, where systems marked by economic disparity and political exclusion are already vulnerable to biased algorithms, surveillance, and data exploitation.
“It challenges us to ask whose voices are shaping AI, whose realities are being represented and who is being left behind.” – Rev. Jackline Makena
“AI governance must Include the marginalized, not just the powerful”
Kamal Sedra, a digital transformation and cybersecurity specialist working across the Middle East and North Africa, argues that AI is rapidly reshaping power — often at the expense of vulnerable communities. While governments across the region are investing heavily in AI for surveillance and information control, civil society, journalists, and minority groups are being left without the tools or protections they need.
“This is only not about AI, it's about whether digital transformation will empower people or leave them behind.” – Kamal Sedra
“Our critical infrastructure is dangerously unprotected”
Dr Erin Green, a theologian, communicator, and digital justice researcher with two decades of focus on AI, offers two observations on AI's challenges today. First, she notes a growing popular backlash against generative AI — people find it unsatisfying, addictive, and disruptive to work and mental health — a concern that echoes her original motivation for studying digital technology: that it too often fails to support genuine human flourishing. Her second, more urgent point concerns AI and critical infrastructure.
“There's really a significant gap in the legal mechanisms and in the policies and in the ability to respond to these kinds of attacks on critical infrastructure, and I think that we will see this increasingly. For example, we saw the cutting of cables in the North Sea and the Baltic Seas. I think increasingly the shape of war will look more and more like this.” – Dr Erin Green
“AI is leaving the grassroots behind”
Vincent Rajkumar, representing the Asian region of the World Association for Christian Communication, opens with a stark reality: 40% of people across Asia remain unreachable by digital communication, due to poor network infrastructure, unaffordable devices, and inaccessible payment systems. While the rest of the world debates AI's potential, vast grassroots populations are effectively "digital refugees."
“We affirm that communication is for community-building and communication is for life.” – Vincent Rajkumar
Our Common Future: Advocating for Digital Rights and AI Accountability
Symposium announcement: International symposium to lay path towards digital justice in times of AI
