OECD AI Principles

The OECD Recommendation on Artificial Intelligence (OECD/LEGAL/0449) has been adhered to by OECD members and a number of partner countries, and was later updated to reflect developments such as generative AI. Its five principles are: inclusive growth, sustainable development and well-being; respect for the rule of law, human rights and democratic values, including fairness and privacy; transparency and explainability; robustness, security and safety; and accountability. The five policy recommendations address investment in research, an enabling data and compute ecosystem, an interoperable governance environment, building human capacity and preparing for labor market change, and international cooperation.

The principles are not binding, but they are highly influential. They shaped the G20 AI Principles, and their definition of an AI system was used as the basis for the definition in the EU AI Act. For organizations, they are a widely recognized vocabulary for responsible AI policies: a corporate AI policy that maps each internal commitment to one of the five principles is easier to explain to regulators and partners in different countries.