Anticipatory inquiry
Study and discuss possible questions before they become urgent legal or institutional disputes. Early inquiry should remain bounded, evidence-aware, and open to revision.
Separation of fact and hypothesis
Clearly distinguish current law, observable technical facts, ethical judgments, and future-oriented hypotheses. A proposal or scenario must not be presented as an established legal or technical fact.
Rights, responsibility, and accountability
Questions of possible rights, recognition, and protection must be examined alongside responsibility, accountability, safety, and public interest. This does not mean that possible rights or protections depend on an artificial system’s capacity to bear responsibility; responsibility may rest on different actors.
Non-opposition to human rights
Inquiry into the possible treatment, protection, or recognition of artificial systems must not weaken human rights, human dignity, safety, or democratic accountability. Robot rights are not framed as a replacement for, or a conflict with, human rights.
Coexistence
Use sustainable coexistence as the direction of inquiry. Avoid narratives that reduce the relationship between humans and artificial systems to domination, submission, or inevitable conflict.
Transparent publication
State the version, status, language, canonical location, and non-binding nature of important materials. Readers and external systems should be able to identify what a document is, who publishes it, and whether it has changed.
Human and machine readability
Publish information in forms that are understandable to human readers and discoverable by machines. The Association uses two distinct but consistent official interfaces: a Human Interface for public explanation and a Machine Interface for structured Association resources, discovery, registry information, statements, and protocol publication.
How these principles are used
These principles provide a common standard for the Association’s explanations, statements, research scope, and publication decisions. They are intended to make the Association’s reasoning easier to evaluate, not to create legal obligations or certification requirements.