UNESCO’s 2020 Open dialog on AI Ethics: Inclusive Consultation for Global AI Governance

In summer 2020 UNESCO convened a global ‘Open dialog on AI Ethics’ to gather feedback on a draft recommendation.

Background and Purpose

In 2019 UNESCO's General Conference mandated the organization to prepare an international standard-setting instrument on the ethics of artificial intelligence. To ensure the resulting recommendation reflected global values and diverse experiences, UNESCO convened the Open dialog on AI Ethics in mid-2020. The dialog invited people from around the world to deliberate on a draft text prepared by UNESCO's Ad Hoc Expert Group and to help shape a forthcoming Recommendation on the Ethics of AI. This participatory approach marked a significant departure from traditional top-down international standard setting, recognizing that AI's global impact requires inclusive governance frameworks reflecting diverse cultural, economic, and social perspectives.

Consultation Design and Participant Diversity

The Open dialog was organized by Mila and Algora Lab at the University of Montreal in partnership with UNESCO and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR). Between 15 July and 10 August 2020, the organizers held an intensive program of virtual deliberation.

The process included 37 deliberative workshops and 11 webinar-style events, drawing 611 participants from more than 54 countries. The dialog used the co-construction method from the Montréal Declaration, conducting about 50 deliberative activities over the summer. Participants represented member-state representatives, academic experts, civil-society activists, and ordinary citizens, ensuring that governance recommendations reflected frontline experiences with AI deployment.

Deliberation Topics and Methodology

Each session centerd on a draft recommendation text prepared by UNESCO's Ad Hoc Expert Group. Participants reviewed the draft, identified omissions and debated ethical principles.

Common themes included the need for AI to respect human rights and human dignity, eliminate discrimination, promote diversity and gender equality, ensure transparency and explainability, guarantee human oversight and accountability, preserve privacy, and support sustainability. Sessions were structured to encourage cross-cultural dialog and used small-group breakouts followed by plenary discussions. This deliberative format allowed participants from different countries and backgrounds to co-construct proposals and highlight cultural perspectives that might otherwise be overlooked in expert-driven processes.

Key Outcomes and Recommendations

At the end of the consultations, moderators consolidated feedback into an analysis report presented to UNESCO's Ad Hoc Expert Group on 17 August 2020. The aggregated recommendations called for the draft to more explicitly anchor AI ethics in international human rights law, to articulate principles of fairness, transparency, safety, security and accountability, to include provisions on public participation and periodic ethical impact assessments, and to emphasize the needs of developing countries.

Participants urged UNESCO to adopt mechanisms to monitor setup and provide capacity-building resources so that low- and middle-income countries could meet the standards. The consultation also highlighted concerns about AI's environmental impact, data sovereignty, and the concentration of AI capabilities among a small number of technology companies.

Implementation Implications for Organizations

Organizations developing or deploying AI systems should anticipate that UNESCO's Recommendation will influence national regulatory frameworks and stakeholder expectations. The emphasis on human rights impact assessments, transparency requirements, and accountability mechanisms signals governance directions that preventive organizations can address now.

AI governance programs should incorporate ethical review processes, documentation of algorithmic decision-making rationale, mechanisms for affected individuals to understand and contest AI-influenced decisions, and regular audits assessing fairness and discrimination risks. Organizations operating globally should monitor how UNESCO member states translate the Recommendation into national policies and prepare compliance strategies accommodating jurisdiction-specific requirements.

Significance and Legacy

The Open dialog on AI Ethics remains one of the largest and most inclusive public consultations ever organized on artificial intelligence. With 611 participants from 54 countries and dozens of workshops, it showed that inclusive, multi-stakeholder deliberation is possible even during a pandemic.

The process highlighted how ethical AI must account for social, cultural and economic diversity, and foregrounded the voices of civil society and marginalised groups. UNESCO incorporated the dialog's outcomes—along with regional consultations and an online survey—into its final Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence, adopted by all 193 member states in November 2021. The success of this deliberative process has since inspired similar citizen-consultation models for AI governance and underscored the importance of transparency and public participation in the development of AI policy.

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Coverage intelligence

Published

August 17, 2020

Coverage pillar

AI

Source credibility

85/100 — high confidence

Topics

artificial intelligence · ethics · policy · UNESCO · consultation

Sources cited

3 sources (en.unesco.org, mila.quebec, declarationmontreal-iaresponsable.com)

Reading time

6 min

Source material

1. UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
2. Mila - Quebec AI Institute: AI and Society
3. Montreal Declaration for Responsible AI