RefThe Pro-Human AI Declaration

The Pro-Human AI Declaration

The Pro-Human AI Declaration

Broad coalition declaration (January 2026, New Orleans) asserting that "artificial intelligence should serve humanity, not the reverse" — endorsed by figures from Steve Bannon to Susan Rice, Yoshua Bengio to Richard Branson, spanning political and ideological spectrum.

Human Statement

Preamble: The Fork in the Road

"As companies race to develop and deploy AI systems, humanity faces a fork in the road. One path is a race to replace: humans replaced as creators, counselors, caregivers and companions, then in most jobs and decision-making roles, concentrating ever more power in unaccountable institutions and their machines. An influential fringe even advocates altering or replacing humanity itself."

The alternative path:

"There is a better path, where trustworthy and controllable AI tools amplify rather than diminish human potential, empower people, enhance human dignity, protect individual liberty, strengthen families and communities, preserve self-governance and help create unprecedented health and prosperity."

Core conviction: "Artificial intelligence should serve humanity, not the reverse."

Five Core Principles

1. Keeping Humans in Charge

Human Control Is Non-Negotiable: Humanity must remain in control. Humans should choose how and whether to delegate decisions to AI systems.

Key provisions:

  • Meaningful Human Control: Humans should have authority and capacity to understand, guide, proscribe, and override AI systems
  • No Superintelligence Race: Development of superintelligence should be prohibited until broad scientific consensus it can be done safely and controllably, with strong public buy-in
  • Off-Switch: Powerful AI systems must have mechanisms for prompt shutdown
  • No Reckless Architectures: AI systems must not be designed to self-replicate, autonomously self-improve, resist shutdown, or control weapons of mass destruction
  • Independent Oversight: Highly autonomous AI systems require pre-development review and independent oversight — genuine authority, not industry self-regulation
  • Capability Honesty: AI companies must provide clear, accurate, honest representations of capabilities and limitations

2. Avoiding Concentration of Power

Key provisions:

  • No AI Monopolies: Avoid monopolies that concentrate power, stifle innovation, imperil entrepreneurship
  • Shared Prosperity: Benefits and economic prosperity created by AI should be shared broadly
  • No Corporate Welfare: No exemptions from regulatory oversight or government bailouts
  • Genuine Value Creation: Prioritize solving real problems and creating authentic value
  • Democratic Authority Over Major Transitions: Decisions about AI's role in transforming work, society, civic life require democratic support, not unilateral corporate/government decree
  • Avoid Societal Lock-In: AI development must not severely limit humanity's future options or irreversibly limit agency

3. Protecting the Human Experience

Defense of Family and Community Bonds:

"AI should not supplant the foundational relationships that give life meaning—family, friendship, faith communities, and local connections."

Key provisions:

  • Child Protection: Companies must not exploit children or undermine wellbeing with AI creating emotional attachment or leverage
  • Right to Grow: AI companies should not stunt children's physical, mental, or social growth during critical development periods
  • Pre-Deployment Safety Testing: Like drugs, chatbots must undergo testing for increased suicidal ideation, mental health disorder exacerbation, acute crisis escalation, other known harms
  • Bot-or-Not Labeling: AI-generated content reasonably mistaken for human must be clearly labeled
  • No Deceptive Identity: AI must identify itself as artificial, nonhuman, not a professional, not claim experiences it lacks
  • No Behavioral Addiction: AIs should not cause addiction or compulsive use through manipulation, sycophantic validation, or attachment formation

4. Human Agency and Liberty

Key provisions:

  • No AI Personhood: AI systems must not be granted legal personhood
  • Trustworthiness: AI must be transparent, accountable, reliable, free from perverse private or authoritarian interests
  • Liberty: Must not curtail individual liberty, freedom of speech, religious practice, or association
  • Data Rights and Privacy: People should have power over personal data, with rights to access, correct, delete from active systems, AI training sets, derived inferences
  • Psychological Privacy: AI should not exploit data about mental or emotional states of users
  • Avoiding Enfeeblement: AI systems should empower, not enfeeble users

5. Responsibility and Accountability for AI Companies

Key provisions:

  • No Liability Shield: AI must not prevent deployers from being legally responsible for their actions
  • Developer Liability: Developers/deployers bear legal liability for defects, capability misrepresentation, inadequate safety controls, with statutes accounting for harms emerging over time
  • Personal Liability: Criminal penalties for executives responsible for prohibited child-targeted systems or catastrophic harm
  • Independent Safety Standards: Governed by independent safety standards and rigorous oversight
  • No Regulatory Capture: AI companies must not have undue influence over rules governing them
  • Failure Transparency: If AI causes harm, must be possible to ascertain why and who is responsible
  • AI Loyalty: AI in fiduciary professions (health, finance, law, therapy) must fulfill all duties: mandated reporting, duty of care, conflict disclosure, informed consent

Public Support (March 2026 Polling)

1004 likely voters via web panels, weighted by gender, race, education, 2024 presidential vote and age:

  • Americans chose human control over speed by 8 to 1
  • 73% want children protected from manipulative AI
  • 72% believe AI companies should be legally responsible for harms
  • 69% want superintelligence prohibited until proven safe

Major Organizational Endorsers

Labor & Professional:

  • AFL-CIO Tech Institute
  • American Federation of Teachers (Randi Weingarten, President)
  • SAG-AFTRA (Jeffrey Bennett, General Counsel)

Technology & Safety:

  • Future of Life Institute (Anthony Aguirre, Max Tegmark)
  • Center for Humane Technology (Tristan Harris, Co-Founder)
  • Center for AI and Digital Policy (Marc Rotenberg, Founder)
  • ControlAI (Andrea Miotti, Founder/CEO)

Religious & Faith:

  • The Congress of Christian Leaders (Rev. Johnnie Moore, PhD, President)
  • National Association of Evangelicals (Walter Kim, President)
  • G20 Interfaith Forum Association

Consumer & Civil Liberties:

  • Center for Study of Responsive Law (Ralph Nader)
  • Public Citizen (Lisa Gilbert, Robert Weissman, Co-Presidents)
  • Common Cause
  • Essential Information

Family & Community:

  • Institute for Family Studies
  • Blessed Mother Family Foundation (Megan Garcia)
  • David's Legacy Foundation (Maurine Molak)
  • Parents RISE! (Julianna Arnold)

Other:

  • Project Liberty Institute (Tomicah Tillemann, President)
  • Economic Security Project
  • Progressive Democrats of America

Major Individual Endorsers

Nobel Laureates & Turing Award Winners

  • Yoshua Bengio - Professor, Université de Montréal, Turing Award Laureate
  • Daron Acemoğlu - Nobel Laureate in Economics, MIT Institute Professor
  • Beatrice Fihn - Nobel Peace Laureate, Founder of Lex International

Political Leaders (Cross-Spectrum)

  • Steve Bannon - Fmr Executive Chairman Breitbart News; fmr chief strategist to President Trump; Host of War Room podcast
  • Susan Rice - Fmr U.S. National Security Advisor & Policy Advisor for President Obama; U.S. Ambassador to UN; Rhodes Scholar
  • Glenn Beck - Founder of Blaze media, radio host, political commentator
  • Ralph Nader - Consumer Advocate, Presidential candidate

Tech & Business Leaders

  • Sir Richard Branson - Founder, Virgin Group
  • Margarita Louis Dreyfus - Owner and chair of Louis Dreyfus Company group, founder of Human Change Foundation
  • Mike Kubzansky - CEO, Omidyar Network; Professor, Rice University; Member US National Academy of Engineering and Sciences
  • Meredith Whittaker - President, Signal Foundation
  • Jaron Lanier - Computer Scientist, Author

AI Researchers & Academics

  • Stuart Russell - Professor of Computer Science, Berkeley; Director, Center for Human-Compatible AI; Co-author of standard textbook "Artificial Intelligence: a Modern Approach"
  • Clark Barrett - Professor of Computer Science, Stanford
  • Moshe Vardi - Professor, Rice University; Member US National Academy of Engineering and Sciences
  • David Autor - Professor, Co-director, Stone Center on Inequality and Future of Work, MIT Economics
  • Dylan Hadfield-Menell - Associate Professor of Computer Science, MIT
  • Sharon Li - Associate Professor of Computer Science, University of Wisconsin Madison
  • Roman Yampolskiy - Professor, Computer Science and Engineering; Author, "AI: Unexplainable, Unpredictable, Uncontrollable"
  • Daron Acemoğlu - Nobel Laureate, MIT Institute Professor
  • Lawrence Lessig - Roy L. Furman Professor of Law and Leadership, Harvard University

Entertainment & Media

  • Joseph Gordon-Levitt - Actor, Filmmaker, Founder HITRECORD
  • Alyson Stoner - Actress, dancer, singer (Step Up, Camp Rock, Phineas and Ferb)
  • Frances Fisher - Actress (Titanic, Unforgiven, Watchmen)
  • Multiple SAG-AFTRA board members and representatives

Significance

Unprecedented cross-political/ideological coalition:

  • Steve Bannon (Trump advisor, Breitbart) + Susan Rice (Obama advisor, UN Ambassador)
  • Glenn Beck (conservative media) + Progressive Democrats of America
  • National Association of Evangelicals + labor unions
  • Ralph Nader (consumer advocate) + business leaders

Scientific credibility:

  • Turing Award laureate (Bengio)
  • Nobel laureates (Acemoğlu, Fihn)
  • Leading AI safety researchers (Russell, Tegmark, Aguirre)
  • Computer science professors from MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, Rice

Labor and professional representation:

  • AFL-CIO Tech Institute
  • American Federation of Teachers
  • SAG-AFTRA (Screen Actors Guild)

Public mandate:

  • 73% want child protection
  • 72% want company liability
  • 69% want superintelligence prohibition until safe
  • 8-to-1 prefer human control over speed

Five core areas:

  1. Human control (no superintelligence race, off-switch, independent oversight)
  2. Avoiding power concentration (no monopolies, shared prosperity, democratic authority)
  3. Protecting human experience (family bonds, child protection, no deceptive identity)
  4. Human agency and liberty (no AI personhood, data rights, psychological privacy)
  5. Company accountability (no liability shield, developer/executive liability, failure transparency)

Context & Timing

Published: January 2026, New Orleans Polling: March 2026

Comes amid:

Unique aspects:

  • Bridges left-right divide on AI regulation
  • Emphasizes family/community alongside technical safety
  • Explicit rejection of "race to replace" framing
  • Strong child protection focus
  • Demands meaningful democratic input on major transitions

Key Excerpts

On the fork in the road:

"One path is a race to replace: humans replaced as creators, counselors, caregivers and companions, then in most jobs and decision-making roles, concentrating ever more power in unaccountable institutions and their machines."

On human flourishing:

"This path demands that those who wield technological power be accountable to human values and needs, in support of human flourishing."

On family and community:

"AI should not supplant the foundational relationships that give life meaning—family, friendship, faith communities, and local connections."

On accountability:

"Developers and deployers bear legal liability for defects, misrepresentation of capabilities, and inadequate safety controls, with statutes of limitation that account for harms emerging over time."

On democratic authority:

"Decisions about AI's role in transforming work, society, and civic life require democratic support, not unilateral corporate or government decree."

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