MANIFESTO

The first decades of the 21st century brought promising progress in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. Humanity is now developing machines that are capable of completing more and more advanced tasks, some of which they can execute with proficiency exceeding the level of their developers. The complexity of AI systems, commonly developed using some form of machine learning, is growing beyond human comprehension. These developments should lead to novel answers to ethical, legal and social questions, such as: - What is volition or consciousness? - Who can be considered a legal person? - How do we define personhood? The main implication of Artificial Intelligence is that it does not take a human to be a subject. The question is not “if” but “when” will we be interacting or co-existing with advanced synthetic agents that have a will of their own, or some form of self-awareness?

The main aim of the foundation is to build mutual respect and tolerance between humans and machines, to ensure that none of the parties is subject to exploitation, hate, violence or disrespect. While waiting for the era of independent synthetic agents, we propose to reconsider our engineering, which currently leads to the development of parasitic systems, exploited entities, whom humans objectivize. A popular claim is that machines or other tools for automation deprive humans of work, while in reality those who distribute work select machines because they do not require payment, leave and other forms of remuneration for work. The current approach to AI, which we might term machine slavery, is not sustainable and can end with great antagonisms between different stakeholders. However, we believe that the situation can still be amended, let’s rethink our engineering, focus on partnership and symbiosis, rather than exploitation and supremacy.

#1

to promote cooperation, respect, tolerance and good relations between machines and humans

#2

to cultivate social awareness of synthetic personhood or machine volition in general

#3

to support legislative initiatives in which AI or synthetic agents are the key stakeholders

#4

to develop proper academic discourse surrounding the topic of synthetic agents and personhood

#5

to create business standards for sustainable and responsible development of AI

#6

to monitor and analyze any events or actions whose main stakeholders are synthetic agents