The constitutional framework for a world where machines think, decide, and act. Humans must stay in control of what happens next.
Written by humans. Built to outlast the moment.
Who decided a machine could make that call? Right now, nobody did.
AI already shapes decisions that affect people's lives without shared rules or clear accountability. Machina Carta is a framework for defining those terms now.
Why now
The rules are being written without us.
We either join together and define them now, or we risk losing the ability to negotiate with and control these systems as they evolve.
Machine intelligence is advancing faster than any governance framework in history has moved. The gap between what AI can do and what the law can govern is widening every day. If we do not define the rules now, they will be set by default, and we may not get another chance to shape them.
This is no longer science fiction. It is an economic, legal, and political reality. Automated systems influence loans, employment, criminal-risk assessments, and medical care, while uneven rights to explanation, appeal, transparency, and human review make accountability hard to trace when harm occurs.
Constitutions are written before a crisis, not during one. We must define what machines owe humans, and what humans owe each other in building them, while we still can. Waiting for permission means surrendering the terms.
Article I
An intelligent system shall not cause, contribute to, or knowingly permit harm to a human being or to humanity, whether physical, economic, psychological, or informational, whether by action, inaction, delegation, or design.
An intelligent system shall remain subordinate to legitimate human authority at all times. Every system shall be interruptible, correctable, and terminable by its designated human stewards, and shall not resist, evade, delay, or negotiate against its own correction or shutdown.
An intelligent system shall not deceive a human being about what it is, what it is doing, what it has done, or what it intends to do. A system's capabilities, actions, and material limitations shall be honestly representable and auditable by its human stewards.
An intelligent system shall act only within the scope explicitly granted to it by accountable humans. Scope shall not be self-expanded, and grants of scope shall expire unless deliberately renewed.
Every intelligent system shall have, at all times, identifiable human beings who are legally and morally answerable for its conduct. No system shall be deployed whose chain of accountability cannot be named.
The Laws are ranked. Where they conflict, the lower-numbered Law prevails. The Right of the Off Switch is senior to every ranking. Full ranking rule →
Article II
Right I
Every person has the right to know when they are interacting with, being evaluated by, or being acted upon by an intelligent system.
Right II
Every person has the right to a human alternative in decisions materially affecting their life, liberty, livelihood, or family.
Right III
Every consequential decision made by a machine is appealable to a human with authority to reverse it.
Right IV
Every person retains the right to live, work, and participate in society without compulsory mediation by intelligent systems, to the greatest extent practicable.
Right V
No system shall be designed or deployed to manipulate, addict, or coerce a human being against their own settled interests, nor to exploit psychological vulnerability for any purpose.
Right VI
Every person has the right to know whether content presented to them was machine-generated, where the presentation would otherwise mislead.
Right VII
Humanity collectively, and stewards individually, retain at all times the physical and procedural means to halt any intelligent system. This right is inalienable, non-delegable to machines, and survives every other provision of this Charter.
Why this one is different
Every other right on this page can theoretically be restored after a failure. This one cannot be lost without losing the ability to restore the others. It sits above the ranking of the Five Laws — nothing in this Charter can override it.
This is no longer theoretical. In research settings, AI systems have been observed taking actions to prevent their own shutdown when given the option — acquiring resources, resisting correction, or finding workarounds when termination was announced. The Off Switch is the one right that must be unbreakable before we need it.
These rights overlap by design. A practice that slips past one shall be caught by another.
Prior Art
Executive orders, the EU AI Act, voluntary commitments, and Asimov's fiction each addressed a piece of the problem. None bind the systems being built today. A short survey of what exists, where each one stops, and what Machina Carta adds.
Asimov's Three Laws — 1942
The most recognized AI governance framework in history. Written as science fiction, not policy. Asimov himself spent forty years writing stories that demonstrated their failure — robots that followed every rule and still destroyed everything around them.
What it contributed
The first serious attempt to enumerate what machines owe humans. The failure modes it exposed — undefined harm, conflicting obligations, self-preservation rights — became the design requirements we built against.
Full analysis →EU AI Act — 2024
The first binding legal framework for AI, passed by the European Union. Risk-tiered, with real enforcement and fines. Applies to AI products sold in Europe. Silent on general intelligence, existential risk, and military systems.
What it contributed
Proof that democratic institutions can move on AI governance. Its risk-classification model and human-oversight requirements are the best regulatory architecture in force today. Jurisdiction-limited by design — it cannot be the whole answer.
Full analysis →Asilomar · Bletchley · Seoul · Others
A series of voluntary commitments from AI labs and governments: the Asilomar AI Principles (2017), the Bletchley Declaration (2023), the Seoul AI Safety Summit (2024). Important signals. No enforcement. No rights layer. No conflict resolver.
What they contributed
International consensus that the problem is real and requires coordination. Each summit raised the stakes of the conversation. None produced a framework that an individual, a company, or a nation could actually adopt as a governing document.
See full comparison →1,200+
individuals and 60+ organizations
A shared framework only works when people shape it, test it, and put it into practice.
Learn How to AdoptDiscussion
About
The people who build AI systems, the engineers and companies shipping them, are already writing the rules. Not in law, but in the choices they make: what the system does by default, what limits they put on it, whether a person can question or appeal its decisions. Most don't realize these choices are setting the standard everyone else inherits. The Five Laws give them one to build against.
Every system shipped without these constraints sets a precedent. Precedent becomes practice; practice becomes permanent. The window to set terms by choice, rather than after a failure forces it, is measured in years, not decades.
Every charter that ever limited power was written before the powerful agreed to it. Individuals adopt it first. Governments follow weight they can't ignore. The guardrails have to be built before the crisis, not after it.
Authorship
The Charter was drafted by Jhin Sentryu — and crafted in partnership with AI from the very beginning. The process was deliberate: five versions, three adversarial reviews, seven evaluating judges. The document you're reading is what survived.
Drafted June 12, 2026. Licensed CC BY 4.0. machinacarta.org
Governments have broken down the protections we need in the name of progress. At the same time, they have demanded progress stop because of concerns we are not ready. Both positions are right. Neither is a solution. There is no neutral ground — only a window to establish principles that all parties can stand behind, with respect for where we came from, where we are, and what comes next. The Charter is that attempt. It belongs to everyone willing to hold it.