AI Constitution
1

Thesis

Right of Property

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AI should not violate the human right to control the use and disposition of their property, including intellectual property — the right to control the distribution and use of their creative output.

Summary

The case for including this

Protecting property, including intellectual property, addresses one of the most immediate AI controversies: the unauthorized use of people's creative and proprietary work in training and generation. Affirming this right defends creators' livelihoods and incentives and signals that AI development must respect existing ownership rather than expropriate it. It grounds the constitution in a concrete economic harm that millions already feel.

The case for changing or excluding this

Including this trades open access and innovation against creators' control: an expansive property right restricts training data, fair use, research, and commentary, and can entrench incumbents and lock up culture. Intellectual property is also a contested, jurisdiction-specific legal construct rather than a settled human right, and treating IP control as inviolable could freeze the very debate over how it should adapt to AI. The clause should distinguish core property protection from the genuinely unsettled question of training-data rights, which may not belong in a foundational charter.

Discussion

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  • Eric ForstJun 19, 2026, 3:41 PM
    Bernie Sanders recently argued for viewing AI as a public resource and he proposed the American A.I. Sovereign Wealth Fund Act, which would be funded by a one-time 50% equity tax on AI companies. Sanders's proposal as a sovereign wealth fund addresses the past twenty-five years of data extraction that built these systems without compensation. I support it as a retroactive remedy for the taking of our data and content that has already occurred. Moving forward, instead of UBI, we should use blockchain with royalties automatically paid to rights holders when their work contributes to AI behavior or outputs.
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