EU AI Act

declaration · 1986

The Asilomar AI Principles

Drafted over a few hours on the final day of a four-day 1986 conference on future technologies, and the first written set of research principles for advanced AI agreed by the researchers themselves. Its structure — general principles plus separately stated capability thresholds — is the structure of every frontier safety framework since. The excerpt below paraphrases the principles rather than reproducing the agreed wording.

primary · 1785

Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals

Written in under five months in 1785 and deliberately unreadable, on Kant's own account, because he wanted it to be hard. One maxim is tested three ways — as a universal law, humanity as an end in itself, and the kingdom of ends — and the ground of obligation is the form of the act, never its consequence.

primary · 300 BCE

Mozi

The one ancient Chinese text that argues for impartial care as a principle rather than as a sentiment: regard others' parents as your own, reject aggressive war and defensive hierarchy, and justify both by an explicit standard. The excerpt below paraphrases the jian xiang ai chapters rather than quoting a translation.

modern · 2019

Human Compatible: Artificial Intelligence and the Problem of Control

Russell argues that perfect value alignment is the wrong goal: systems are built by imperfect people, for imperfect objectives, and certainty about human values would be dangerous if it were achieved. The alternative is enough uncertainty about human preferences to keep a human in the loop as a genuine check. The excerpt below paraphrases the argument rather than quoting the 2019 book.

Rules binding on states rather than on systems, with no forum above them.

Governing the hardware that trains frontier systems rather than the software.

Independent verification of a developer's claims by an accredited third party.

Coordination across states for problems no state can solve alone.