Open Ethics Manifesto

Bringing trust in the digital economy demands transformation.

Since its launch in 2018, the Open Ethics initiative paved the way for the industry to fundamentally rethink how to deal with the information asymmetry between those who develop, deploy — and those who consume services, delivered via autonomous technologies, such as artificial intelligence.

We live in a hyper-connected world and we need to protect consumers. A truly consumer-centric approach is about making risks visible and predictable. Consumers have the right to know their risks. Moreover, industries are getting more complex with multiple services and vendors working together. We need ways to manage these complex value-chains with certainty. Finally, governments need to play their role by stepping in and regulating critical areas of technology application. We need a radically different approach to disclosure that brings common language to ethical computing.

Be the movement

The Open Ethics Manifesto represents our commitment to bringing this vision into reality. We aim to work together with people, businesses, and governments everywhere to make technology more transparent and safe for everyone.

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What we believe in

1. Human-centric

We believe that the consumer is the primary stakeholder in the use of technology, and therefore that consumers have the right to know what risks they are facing when it comes to data and autonomous decisions.

2. Responsibility and balance

We believe in a business where people take responsibility. Where people bring themselves to work with all their humanity, diversity, and passions, where they stand for the transparency and integrity of their decisions, protecting common future and respecting individual values.

3. Transparency

We believe in the need for self-regulation in technology. Societies are granular, communities differ by norms, value hierarchies, and decision-making practices. While top-down regulations are necessary for some areas, “top-down” only is not sufficient. One-size-fits-all solutions rarely work.

4. Open standards

We believe consumers should get a voice. Our future needs open collaboration between citizens, regulators, and businesses to allow freedom of choice. We need a common language so that every one of us will have no barriers to make informed decisions about which ethics to follow, and which technology products/services to use.

5. Co-creation

We believe in open source and co-creation. Being open is a journey, ideas can evolve when they are shared, freed, and built upon. This journey can start from anywhere and take many paths. The path begins with a step and develops one step at a time.

Voluntary disclosure and this manifesto

Members of the Open Ethics, DPOs, and product owners by voluntarily disclosing their products are enabling a global transparency capability to be used by end-users, system integrators, enterprise customers. They agree to:

  • Build, market, and sincerely disclose digital products’ capabilities in a manner consistent with the Open Ethics Transparency Protocol;
  • Advocate for the Open Ethics disclosure as a foundational element of building trust in the digital economy and a commitment to zero-touch interoperability and transparency.
  • Contribute to the continuous evolution of Open Ethics components, roadmap, including implementation feedback, case studies, and coordinating relevant work with other organizations.
  • Demand conformance to Open Ethics disclosure to be supported by vendors, use the Open Ethics Transparency Protocol whenever appropriate when establishing vendor agreements.