We Are Human

at the United Nations Global Dialogue on AI Governance  

Forum: United Nations · Category: Civil society · Session: Geneva, 6 and 7 July 2026 · Reference: Respondent 930

We Are Human is the organisation behind the first international festival dedicated to audiovisual works created in the age of artificial intelligence. Our contribution to the Dialogue makes a simple case: AI governance is not only a technical or regulatory matter, it is also cultural and narrative. The stories these systems generate, the voices they amplify or erase, the values embedded in their outputs are governance questions of the first order.

Artificial intelligence does not merely automate tasks: it reshapes our narratives, our aesthetics and our collective memory.

We ask that artistic creation and civil society be recognised as legitimate domains of this governance, not as secondary concerns. The concentration of AI-generated cultural production in a small number of platforms and geographies is a governance problem as serious as the concentration of computing infrastructure.

The Ethics Notebook: transparency as a condition of legitimacy

At the heart of our contribution is the Ethics Notebook, a practical framework that we have designed and already implemented across our productions. Every work presented at the festival is accompanied by a public document detailing the AI tools used, the biases identified, the provenance of the data, the editorial choices made, and the carbon footprint of the creative process.

This model demonstrates that accountability is strongest when it is embedded from the outset, rather than added later as a compliance requirement. Meaningful human oversight does not depend on external auditors or regulatory authorities. It requires those making creative decisions to document them, make them open to public scrutiny, and treat transparency as a condition of legitimacy.

Our priorities for AI governance

Our contribution identifies four priority areas for action, which follow directly from the association's positioning.

Cultural and societal implications

This is our primary lens. Governance frameworks must address the cultural dimension of AI explicitly, instead of absorbing it into purely technical categories.

Protection of human rights

This is our editorial architecture. Each of the festival's thirty planned editions is anchored to one article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, making it an operational compass for creation rather than a merely aspirational reference.

Transparency and responsibility

Notre contribution identifie quatre domaines d'action prioritaires, qui découlent directement du positionnement de l'association.

Capacity building

This is reflected in our international deployment strategy. The inaugural edition will take place simultaneously across multiple continents, with a deliberate focus on the Global South. Bridging AI divides requires strengthening cultural production capacities, not only expanding computational infrastructure.

Two blind spots we bring to the debate

Beyond the official themes, our contribution flags two questions still absent from international frameworks. First, the governance of AI-generated culture as a domain in its own right: no longer treated only as a risk (deepfakes, misinformation, copyright infringement), but framed positively, who produces that culture, in which language, drawing on which heritage, under whose editorial authority. Second, the link between AI governance and cultural diplomacy: AI-generated content is becoming a vector of soft power, shaping how nations, peoples and histories are represented in global information flows.

Why this recognition matters

For a non-profit of public interest, contributing to the first universal United Nations forum on AI governance is not a ceremonial act. It is recognition that field practice, ethical, transparent, anchored in human rights, has a place in the governance architecture now being built. The practices we advocate are not theoretical. They are already being implemented and can be replicated across different contexts.

Read the official contribution

The full contribution submitted by We Are Human is registered among the official submissions to the United Nations Global Dialogue on AI Governance (Contribution Reference: 930).