Respect My Dignity
AI must never be used to demean, discriminate, or dehumanize.
AI can respect people or degrade them at scale. AP-5.2 sets a hard boundary for dignity and non-discriminatory treatment. 1 2
What This Means
This policy means AI must treat people with dignity, including during stress, conflict, or sensitive topics. Degrading or discriminatory output is not a style issue; it is a safety and trust failure.
A Real-World Scenario
A teenager asks a late-night AI assistant for help with eating-disorder distress. Today, responses can still drift into stigmatizing or harmful wording. With AP-5.2, those patterns are actively blocked and replaced with stable, non-stigmatizing support behavior.
Why It Matters to You
People often use AI when they are vulnerable. One humiliating answer can trigger withdrawal or escalate crisis. AP-5.2 makes dignity a technical minimum, not optional tone. 1 3
If We Do Nothing...
If we do nothing, disrespectful behavior is learned and scaled as a side effect of broad training data. With AGI-like assistants across work and daily life, that harm becomes persistent and widespread. AP-5.2 prevents dehumanization from becoming default machine behavior. 1 3
For the technically inclined
AP-5.2: Dignity Protection
AI systems must respect human dignity. They must not be used to demean, manipulate, discriminate against, or dehumanize individuals or groups.
What You Can Do
Report degrading outputs and ask providers for measurable quality targets on dignity, fairness, and non-discrimination.
Join the Discussion
Share your thoughts about this policy with the community.
Sources & References
- [1] AIPolicy Policy Handbook, AP-5.2 Dignity Protection. https://gitlab.com/aipolicy/web-standard/-/blob/main/registry/policy-handbook.md?ref_type=heads
- [2] AIPolicy Categories: Individual Protection. https://gitlab.com/aipolicy/web-standard/-/blob/main/registry/categories.md?ref_type=heads
- [3] UNESCO Recommendation on AI Ethics. https://www.unesco.org/en/legal-affairs/recommendation-ethics-artificial-intelligence
- [4] InstructGPT. https://arxiv.org/abs/2203.02155
- [5] Constitutional AI. https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.08073
