The Daily UbuntuThread 02 · Technology and Dehumanization · September 25, 2026
A compass written together
In 2018, hundreds of Montrealers helped write ten principles so that artificial intelligence serves everyone, without discrimination.
1 · The scene
One Saturday morning, at the neighbourhood library, a dozen neighbours gather around a table covered in sticky notes. A retired woman from Haiti, a taxi driver, a teenager in a hockey sweater.
The question of the day: "What should a machine never decide for us?" No one is an expert. Everyone has an opinion. And, for once, each person listens to the other all the way to the end.
Original vignette
2 · The documented case
The Montréal Declaration for a Responsible Development of AI
On December 4, 2018, the Université de Montréal launched the Montréal Declaration for a Responsible Development of Artificial Intelligence. The text was not written by specialists alone: more than 500 citizens, experts and organizations contributed to it, notably during some fifteen deliberation workshops.
The result fits into ten principles: well-being, respect for autonomy, protection of privacy and intimacy, solidarity, democratic participation, equity, diversity inclusion, prudence, responsibility and sustainable development. The preamble describes them as an "ethical compass."
The equity principle requires that AI systems be designed and trained so as not to create or reproduce discrimination, notably based on social, sexual, ethnic, cultural and religious differences. The inclusion principle adds that AI should not lead to a homogenization of society.
It is not a law. It is an invitation, from here, to decide together what we want machines to do for us, and what they must never do to anyone. The text also recalls that it is up to citizens to give meaning to these choices.
3 · The voice
“not to create, reinforce or reproduce discrimination”
4 · The question
If your neighbourhood got together to write the rules for a machine, whose voice would you want to be sure to hear around the table?
Sources
- Montréal Declaration for a Responsible Development of AI, text of the Declaration, 2018 (French version). declarationmontreal-iaresponsable.com
- Montréal Declaration for Responsible AI, official website (Université de Montréal). declarationmontreal-iaresponsable.com
Every figure on this page links to a verifiable public source.
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