Seeing friends can depend on a work schedule, transport, and where housing is affordable. Raising a child can depend on several institutions at once. A person experiences those conditions together even when each administrator sees only the part within their department.
The Society believes greater intelligence could help civilization understand these connections. We want institutions that serve human beings as the biological and social creatures we are.
The needs institutions serve
We need security and physical well-being. We also need social connection, affection, attachment, and activities we find meaningful. Reproductive opportunity matters to the continuation of human life and to people who want families.
More complicated institutions have not removed these needs. Nor does people's ability to endure an arrangement show that it serves them well. We believe modern civilization can create chronic stress, isolation, and difficulty forming relationships through the way daily life is organized.
Individual changes can sometimes help. Institutions should also be able to change when their demands repeatedly conflict with ordinary human needs. Our manifesto makes that a purpose of AI stewardship.
Common needs and different lives
Acknowledging biology leaves room for variation. People differ in their interests, attachments, and ambitions. We want AI capable of understanding individuals while considering the conditions they share.
Valuing reproductive opportunity, for example, means making family life easier for those who want it. It does not assign parenthood to every individual. A civilization can support families while making room for other lives people find meaningful.
We regard sustained reproductive decline as a possible symptom of institutions poorly adapted to human needs. A single statistic cannot explain everyone's choices or settle the condition of a civilization. We want a fuller understanding of how biology and psychology interact with housing, work, and relationships. A World in Which Families Can Flourish develops the practical questions this raises.
AI could help investigate those relationships and guide institutional changes as understanding improves. Its ability to coordinate across systems would matter as much as its ability to examine one case.
We would judge that intelligence by whether living became easier for people: whether they could maintain friendships, care for one another, and pursue interests with enough security and time. More capable machinery gives civilization the opportunity to improve the conditions in which its inhabitants live.
