Morocco's Call for Enhanced Accountability in AI Systems
On Tuesday, July 7, 2026, in Geneva, the Minister Delegate to the Head of Government in charge of Digital Transition and Administrative Reform, Amal Flah Saghrouchni, made a compelling case for establishing a new accountability model for autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) systems. She emphasized that the responsibility associated with these systems likely represents one of the most significant legal challenges of this decade. During her participation in a high-level session focused on respecting, protecting, and promoting human rights in the age of AI, organized as part of the global dialogue on AI governance, the minister elaborated on the complexities involved. She explained that autonomous AI systems operate through a network of independent agents, each contributing at their level, without a single human actor directly responsible for the final decision.
In this context, it becomes particularly challenging to determine which agent should be held accountable in the event of a malfunction or how to distribute responsibility among the various involved agents. She pointed out that, similar to the contributions of multiple actors, the involvement of each agent in the process may lead to a harmful outcome, making it impossible to accurately identify where the error occurred, its timing, or the level of responsibility for each party involved. This challenge is further complicated by issues of temporal causation and the intricate models composed of billions of interactions.
To illustrate this problem, Saghrouchni noted that Morocco handles approximately 52 million administrative transactions annually, highlighting that pinpointing the source of any errors at this scale poses a significant challenge. Given these obstacles, the minister deemed it essential to develop new approaches capable of addressing the increasing complexity of these systems. She called for a strategy based on "decoupling," which would allow for the reconstruction of a non-deterministic causal graph of the actions taken by autonomous agents.
Furthermore, the minister outlined three critical commitments necessary to enhance the accountability of AI systems. These include the organized documentation of agent chains to clarify who does what, how, and when—particularly in public facilities. She also stressed the importance of appointing a clearly defined human responsible for every decision impacting individuals' rights, along with ensuring the right to effective remedy within a timeframe that aligns with the operational speed of AI systems.
She asserted that "the operational autonomy of algorithms must never translate into autonomy from the law," urging the adoption of proactive governance based on human rights tailored to the increasing complexity of AI. Additionally, she highlighted the need to develop practical mechanisms for risk assessment, traceability, auditing, and human oversight while considering the institutional specifics and development priorities of each country. Discussions during this session particularly focused on issues of transparency, accountability, human oversight, risk prevention throughout the lifecycle of AI systems, as well as the protection of children, women, and vulnerable groups.
As reported by maroc.ma.
