AI Users Bill of Rights

We are surrounded by too much helpful AI trying to insinuate itself into our lives. I would like the option of leaving “AI” tech turned off and invisible, though that's getting harder and harder.

I've drafted a draft version 1 of a bill of rights for humans who want the option to stay in control. Text in green is not part of the proposal. It is instead rationale or other metadata.

AI Users Bill of Rights
DRAFT, Version 1

1. All use of “AI” features must be opt-in. No operating system or application may be delivered with “AI” defaultly enabled. Users must be allowed to select the option if they want it, but not penalized if they do not.

   Rationale:

   1. Part of human dignity is being allowed freedom of choice. An opt-out system is paternalistic.
   2. Some “AI” systems are not privacy friendly. If such systems are on by default until disabled, the privacy damage may be done by the time of opt-out.
   3. If the system is on by default, it's possible to claim that everyone has at least tried it and hence to over-hype the size of a user base, even to the point of fraudulently claiming users that are not real users.

2. Enabling an “AI” requires a confirmation step. The options must be a simple “yes” or “no”.

   Rationale:

   1. It's easy to hit a button by accident that one does not understand, or to typo a command sequence. Asking explicitly means no user ends up in this new mode without realizing what has happened.
   2. It follows that the “no” may not be something like “not now” or any other variation that might seem to invite later system-initiated inquiry. Answering “no” should put the system or application back into the state of awaiting a user-initiated request.

3. Giving permission to use an AI is not the same as giving permission to share the conversation or use it as training data. Each of these requires separate, affirmative, opt-in permissions.

   Rationale:

   1. If the metaphor is one of a private conversation among friends, one is entitled to exactly that—privacy and behavior on the part of the other party that is not exploitative.
   2. Not all “AI” agents in fact do violate privacy. By making these approvals explicit, there is a user-facing reminder for the ones that are more extractive that more use will be made of data than one may want.

4. All buttons or command-sequences to enable “AI” must themselve be possible to disable or remove.

   Rationale:

   1. It may be possible for someone to enable “AI” without realizing it.
   2. It is too easy to enable “AI” as a typo. Providers of “AI” might even be tempted to place controls in places that encourage such typos.

5. No application or system may put “AI” on the path to basic functionality. This is intended to be a layer above functionality that allows easier access to functionality in order to automate or speed up certain functions that might be slow or tedious to do manually.

   Rationale:

   1. Building this in to the basic functionality makes it hard to remove.
   2. Integrating it with basic functionality makes the basic functionality hard to test.
   3. If an “AI” is running erratically, it should be possible to isolate it for the purposes of debugging or testing.
   4. When analyzing situations forensically, this allows crisper attribution of blame.

With this, I hope those of us who choose to live in the ordinary human way, holding “AI” at bay, can do so comfortably.

Other relevant writings by me about AI:

Sentience Structure
Green AI
Pretty Messed Up
Technology's Ethical Two-Step

 

---

Author's Notes:

If you got value from this post, please “Share” it.

The graphic was created at Abacus.ai using Claude Sonnet 3.7 and Flux 1.1 Ultra Pro, then cropped and scaled using Gimp.

Games Billionaires Play

In case you've been off the grid for a few days and somehow missed it, everyone is reeling over these remarks by Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick:

“Let’s say Social Security didn’t send out their checks this month. My mother-in-law — who's 94 — she wouldn't call and complain. She just wouldn’t. She’d think something got messed up, and she’ll get it next month.

A fraudster always makes the loudest noise — screaming, yelling and complaining.”

Watch it on video if you don't believe me.

What's a lost month here or there between friends?

It didn't surprise me to find that someone who would suggest it was good sport to withhold Social Security payments just to see what happened is a billionaire.

According to The Street, Lutnick's net worth is between $2 billion and $4 billion.

The very fact that we can be so imprecise and assume it doesn't matter whether it's $2B or $4B is a big part of the problem, by the way.

“A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money.”

  —Everett Dirksen

At the heart of this—if there can be said to be any heart in this situation at all—is the sad truth that for regular people, people just struggling to get by day to day and month to month, every dollar matters and no such lack of precision could possibly do anyone justice.

The Public Trust, or lack thereof

If you're so insulated from poverty that you start to either forget or just plain not care how hard it is for others of less means, you have no absolutely business being in any position of public trust.

It might not occur to you, dude, even if it's incredibly obvious to ordinary people hearing your remark, but your mother-in-law is probably able to be so cool because either social security is not her only source of money, or else she knows her daughter is married to someone who is mega-rich, so if she runs a little short, she has an obvious person she can call. We're not all so lucky, as it turns out.

Back in the real world

If I don't pay my credit card, does my bank shrug and say, “hey, maybe next month”? If the bank screams at me right away, is that proof it's defrauding me?

What are you smoking, Mr. Lutnick? Such willfully reckless incompetence should be literally criminal.

Folks on fixed income have monthly payments due now, not just “eventually.”

Any payment urgency is not about the character of any senior on Social Security, who typically has paid a lifetime to earn barely enough to survive on the tiny retirement income Social Security grudgingly affords them. It's all about the character of those they rent from and buy groceries from, and what they, these wealthy rent-takers, will do to society's most fragile members if they are not paid on time.

Last I checked, if I miss a single payment on my credit card, I don't even just get a penalty. They almost double my interest rate going forward.

Shame on you for suggesting there is no good reason for someone to insist their promised payment from the government actually be paid at the time promised. Are you trying to wreck the US Government's reputation for paying all its obligations. Social Security is not a gift. It is one of our society's most fundamental social contracts.

Turning the tables

If withholding what's due is your game, Mr. Oblivious Rich Guy, how about let's make it a serious felony to be unkind to or exploit folks who rely on the full faith and credit of the US government. Let's imprison bankers, landlords, and vendors who are ready to foreclose, add penalties, or raise costs or interest for the vulnerable.

Or, maybe…

Let's, you know, tentatively — just to see who cries foul or who says “hey, maybe next month” — deprive billionaires of all assets for a month or two, leaving them out in the world we live in with only the iffy hope of Social Security, just to see if they're comfortable with policies they seem to think so fair.

I bet the billionaires who cry loudest really are frauds.

 

---

Author's Notes:

If you got value from this post, please “Share” it.

Also, if you enjoyed this piece, you might also find these posts by me to be of interest:

• Credit Cards: A Tax on “Being Poor”
  Why credit cards are a “private tax,” and thus double-taxation.
• Enough
  Why rich people have no business talking about the pain of taxation.
• Losing the War in a Quiet Room
  History and comparison of shareholder and stakeholder capitalism.

This essay grew from a thread I wrote on BlueSky. I have expanded and adjusted it to fit in this publication medium, where more space and better formatting is available.

The black & white image was produced by making 2 images in abacus.ai using Claude-Sonnet 3.7 and FLUX 1.1 [pro] Ultra, then post-processing to merge parts of each that I liked in Gimp.