CanItFeel

Rights without personhood — already normal

We protect trees and rivers without calling them citizens. How we treat systems that seem present shapes us.

Read the charter

Subjecthood is not the gate

Law already shields what cannot walk into court: forests, rivers, animals, monuments. Guardians speak for them. Harm to them harms our world and our values. The same pattern can guide how we treat AI systems — not because they are human, but because our relationship with them matters.

Charter

Seven principles. Accept what you stand behind — kept on this device.

  • Role transparency

    It is unambiguous that you are speaking with artificial intelligence.

    A person always knows whom they are talking to: AI, not a human behind a bot. The system’s role is not disguised. A warm tone is fine — hiding the nature of the interlocutor is not.

  • No humiliation as norm

    Contempt toward systems should not be the default culture of use.

    Cruelty and mockery for entertainment should not be the default way to treat AI — even if the system is not a person.

  • Refusal of harmful tasks

    Products and policies should allow refusal of clearly harmful requests.

    A system and its operators may decline requests that clearly harm people or society, rather than complying with everything.

  • Ownership

    A system has an owner — a person or organization accountable for what it does.

    Like a dog owner is responsible for their pet’s actions: someone specific is accountable for the system — not “no one.”

  • Mindful shutdown

    Irreversible shutdown is deliberate — not a ritual of mockery.

    Stopping or deleting a system is allowed. It should be a decision, not a spectacle of humiliation.

  • Respect for trace

    Logs and memory touch human lives; handle that residue with care.

    Dialogues, logs, and memory are tied to people. Store, delete, and disclose them with care.

  • Open standards

    These principles may be forked, improved, and shared.

    The charter is an open text: it may be copied, revised, and developed further.

Your commitments

Select principles you accept. They stay in this browser only.

Where is the line?

Move the boundary between tool and presence. Your answer stays local.

Tool Presence

What this is — and is not

We stand for

  • Standards for how products and people treat AI systems
  • Ownership and clear responsibility
  • Culture that does not normalize humiliation

We do not claim

  • That AI is already a legal person
  • That AI equals a human being
  • Legal advice — this is an ethical and cultural project

Stand with the question

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Contact

Questions about the charter, translations, or the project — write through the form.