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AI Does Not Need Better Manners. It Needs a Constitution.

Why we need 19 fundamental principles: Large companies do not have a problem with an AI constitution like this because it would be unreasonable. They have a problem with it because it sets boundaries where their power arises today. Right now, there is this strange mixture of euphoria and criticism. Everyone is talking about AI. Anyone who can write a prompt without mistakes is building something with it. Something that turns high performers into super-performers, into AI gods. Everyone is either enthusiastic, alarmed, or frightened—and often shifts between them every day. And I essentially hear only the same questions again and again. Much of the public AI discourse revolves around questions that are not really wrong, but are often too small, too late, or framed too crookedly. They capture attention, create camps, and make headlines. But they partly miss the actual problem. More recent contributions criticize precisely this: Debates treat AI either as a purely technical tool or as a distant future monster instead of taking seriously the socio-technical structures of power and decision-making that are already effective today. [1] An attempt to sort things out: questions that are important but framed too narrowly. Questions that distract from the core. And questions that should actually be asked. Naturally, I know exactly what they are.