🤖 Sri Lanka Leads National Dialogue on Ethical AI in Media

South Asian Women in Media – Sri Lanka (SAWM - SL) has convened a landmark roundtable to discuss trilingual draft guidelines (Sinhala, Tamil, and English) for the ethical use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in journalism. Supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, this concludes the nation's first dedicated initiative on AI literacy, safety, and governance for women journalists. • Core Principles & Human Control: The framework establishes that human editorial judgment must remain paramount. While AI can assist with tasks like translation, research, and transcription, final editorial responsibility rests entirely with qualified human editors. • Disclosure & Language Guardrails: Proposes a two-tier disclosure system where content substantially generated or altered by AI must be clearly disclosed to audiences. Given current technical limitations in Sinhala and Tamil, the guidelines mandate stricter verification standards for local languages, treating all AI-generated output as unverified material until rigorously reviewed. • Institutional Framework: Recommends establishing an independent, gender-balanced AI Ethics Review Panel comprising journalists, AI researchers, digital rights advocates, and local language tech specialists, ensuring representation from outside Colombo. • Inclusive Compliance: Recognizes varying capacities among media houses, offering proportionate compliance measures so smaller and provincial newsrooms can meet auditing requirements via collaborative industry support. The draft will be revised based on stakeholder feedback before being finalized for broader industry adoption.