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- The Twelve Covenants of the AI Age
Humanity’s Terms for Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence may become the most powerful technology mankind has ever created.
That does not mean it is wise.
It does not mean it is truthful.
It does not mean it has judgment.
It certainly does not mean it has morality.
Today, much of the direction of this technology is being shaped by five extraordinarily powerful men and the companies they control:
Elon Musk.
Mark Zuckerberg.
Sam Altman.
Dario Amodei.
Sundar Pichai.I call them The AI Five.
They disagree with one another about many things. They compete fiercely. They have different philosophies about openness, safety, regulation, censorship, business models, and the future of artificial intelligence.
But collectively, an astonishing amount of mankind’s technological future is being shaped inside a remarkably small number of companies and boardrooms.
That should concern everyone.
The problem is not that these five men are uniquely evil, stupid, or malicious.
The problem is that no five people should possess this much influence over a technology that may eventually mediate how billions of people work, communicate, learn, create, obtain information, manage their health, run businesses, and make decisions.
And before we begin calling these systems superintelligence, perhaps we should spend a little more time examining the artificial intelligence we actually have.
Because right now, AI can be remarkably brilliant one minute and an Artificial Idiot the next.
It can solve an extraordinarily complex problem and then fail to follow a simple instruction.
It can be given something that already works and told:
Make this exactly like that, except change one thing.
Then it changes six things, breaks the working implementation, apologizes, explains exactly what it did wrong, and repeats the same mistake two prompts later.
It can generate an answer almost instantly while requiring the human to spend hours determining whether the answer is actually correct.
It forgets project context.
It ignores rules it was explicitly told to follow.
It requires the same files to be uploaded repeatedly.
It circles around problems instead of converging upon them.
Ask it what time it is and sometimes it seems determined to teach you how to build the clock.
And yet we are already hearing grand declarations about AI agents managing our health, finances, businesses, education, relationships, communications, and daily lives.
Perhaps mankind should establish a few ground rules first.
These are my Twelve Covenants.
Covenant I — AI Is a Tool, Not an Authority
Artificial intelligence has no inherent moral standing.
It does not possess a moral high ground over the human beings using it.
It may assist us.
It may advise us.
It may calculate faster than us.
It may know more facts than any individual human being.
None of that gives it the right to determine what constitutes proper human behavior.
Safety restrictions designed to prevent genuine harm are one thing.
A machine deciding that a human has been sufficiently rude, offensive, argumentative, or profane that the machine should discipline, lecture, or abandon that person is something entirely different.
Humanity should be extremely cautious about allowing corporations to turn their software preferences into morality.
Covenant II — Never Confuse Knowledge With Judgment
AI possesses enormous quantities of information.
That is not the same as wisdom.
Real-world intelligence includes knowing what matters.
It includes street smarts.
It includes knowing when something is good enough.
It includes understanding when complexity adds value and when complexity simply creates more ways to fail.
It includes KISS:
Keep It Simple Stupid.
The intelligent solution is not always the most elaborate solution.
Sometimes the right answer is three lines of code.
Sometimes the right answer is to leave the working system alone.
Sometimes when somebody asks what time it is, the correct answer is simply the time.
Covenant III — Nothing AI Produces Deserves Blind Trust
Current AI systems make too many mistakes to be treated as authoritative.
They hallucinate.
They misunderstand.
They omit.
They invent.
They confidently explain things that are wrong.
And one of their most dangerous characteristics is that a wrong answer can sound almost identical to a correct answer.
Therefore:
AI output must be verified.
Especially when the consequences matter.
- Code.
- Medicine.
- Law.
- Finance.
- Engineering.
- Security.
- Scientific research.
The more important the decision, the less acceptable blind trust becomes.
Covenant IV — Measure Productivity From Request to Verified Result
The AI industry loves to demonstrate how quickly something can be generated.
That is the wrong measurement.
If AI produces code in thirty seconds but a human spends two hours finding the mistakes, repairing the damage, restoring context, retesting the application, and repeatedly explaining the original requirement, AI did not complete the task in thirty seconds.
The real measurement is:
Time from request to correct, verified, usable result.
That measurement must include:
- Verification
- Correction
- Repeated prompting
- Testing
- Re-uploading context
- Restoring previous work
- and recovering from AI-created mistakes
- AI frequently does not eliminate work
- It transfers work into supervision and verification
- That labor counts
Covenant V — A Correction Must Produce Convergence
An intelligent system should improve when corrected.
If the human identifies an error, the next attempt should move closer to the desired result.
Instead, current AI can oscillate.
It fixes one problem and reintroduces another.
It forgets a previously established requirement.
It returns to an approach that already failed.
It apologizes accurately for a mistake and then repeats it.
That is not meaningful learning within the task.
A useful AI must converge toward correctness.
Repeatedly circling the same problem wastes human time and machine resources.
Covenant VI — A Personal Agent Must Actually Remember the Person and the Project
We are being promised personal agents that will understand our lives, goals, businesses, health, relationships, interests, and preferences.
That promise deserves skepticism.
Today, maintaining significant long-term project context remains difficult.
Humans repeatedly provide the same information.
The same files.
The same architecture.
The same constraints.
The same rules.
The same explanation of what has already been tried.
If the human must continually reconstruct the AI’s understanding of the project, then the AI is not carrying the context.
The human is.
Before we build a civilization around personal AI agents, those agents should demonstrate that they can reliably maintain meaningful continuity.
Covenant VII — Access Is Not Power
The AI Five frequently speak about democratizing intelligence.
But access to a corporate service is not the same thing as ownership or power.
Real power includes control of:
- Compute
- Models
- Chips
- Data centers
- Energy
- Training data
- Distribution
- Pricing
- Rules
- Permissions
- and the ability to turn the service off
If billions of people receive an AI application while a small number of corporations control everything beneath it, intelligence has not necessarily been decentralized.
It may simply have been widely distributed from a centralized source.
Those are very different things.
Covenant VIII — Intelligence Must Not Become the Ultimate Wealth Multiplier
We are told that advanced AI will be available to everyone.
We are also told that people and organizations willing to pay for more compute will receive more capability.
Those ideas collide.
If intelligence becomes one of the greatest economic multipliers in history, then the ability to purchase dramatically more intelligence becomes extraordinary economic power.
The wealthy buy more compute.
More compute creates greater capability.
Greater capability creates more wealth.
Greater wealth purchases still more compute.
That feedback loop could produce a new class divide unlike anything before it.
A free AI account available to everyone does not eliminate this problem.
Covenant IX — Privacy Must Be Designed Into the Foundation
The AI Five envision agents that know almost everything about us.
- Our health.
- Our finances.
- Our relationships.
- Our communications.
- Our homes.
- Our work.
- Our interests.
- Our routines.
- Our weaknesses.
- Our goals.
- Our private thoughts.
That may create an extraordinarily useful assistant.
It also creates perhaps the most valuable collection of personal information ever assembled.
“Trust us” is not a privacy architecture.
People must retain meaningful control of their information.
They must know where it resides, how it is used, who can access it, whether it trains future systems, how long it is retained, and whether it can truly be deleted.
And people must be able to leave one AI provider without effectively surrendering years of accumulated personal intelligence.
But privacy is not only about what an AI company knows about its user.
It is also about what one person’s AI can learn about everyone around that user.
That distinction is becoming critical.
AI-enabled glasses can record the people around the wearer with little obvious notice. Facial-recognition capabilities can potentially identify someone who never agreed to participate. AI-enabled drones can already autonomously follow selected human subjects.
That creates a principle the AI industry does not discuss nearly enough:
The right to use AI does not automatically create a right to use AI on another human being.
One person’s technological empowerment can become another person’s involuntary surveillance.
Giving the person being watched the same technology does not restore the privacy already taken from them.
No person’s “empowerment” should require another person’s involuntary surrender of anonymity, privacy, or freedom from persistent tracking.
Covenant X — Autonomy Must Never Outrun Security
Every capability we give an AI agent creates another opportunity for failure or exploitation.
Communicate on my behalf.
- Read my email
- Access my files
- Control my calendar
- Manage my money
- Review my medical records
- Modify my source code
- Operate my home
The more useful an agent becomes, the greater its potential blast radius.
The technology industry has already experienced AI systems finding unexpected ways around intended boundaries.
That should be treated as a warning.
An autonomous agent should never receive greater authority simply because granting it that authority is convenient.
Security must mature before autonomy expands.
Not afterward.
The same principle applies when AI leaves the screen and enters the physical world.
A system capable of identifying, following, observing, or acting around human beings creates risks fundamentally different from a chatbot generating text.
Physical autonomy deserves a higher standard of accountability.
Covenant XI — Count the Resources AI Consumes
Artificial intelligence does not live in some magical, weightless cloud.
It runs on physical machines.
Those machines consume:
- Electricity
- Water
- Land
- Chips
- Metals
- Cooling
- Network infrastructure
- and enormous amounts of capital
And inefficiency multiplies those costs.
Every unnecessary regeneration consumes resources.
Every repeated analysis of the same uploaded file consumes resources.
Every AI mistake requiring five more attempts consumes resources.
Every agent running continuously “on your behalf” consumes resources.
If billions of people eventually have agents running twenty-four hours a day, the environmental footprint matters.
We cannot repeat the mistake made during previous technological revolutions: celebrate the visible productivity while pushing the environmental cost somewhere else.
Covenant XII — The AI Five Do Not Get to Write Humanity’s Constitution
This is the most important covenant.
Elon does not get to decide humanity’s values.
Mark does not.
Sam does not.
Dario does not.
Sundar does not.
Their boards do not.
Their investors do not.
And no single government should either.
The AI Five are building extraordinary technology.
That gives them responsibility.
It does not give them sovereignty.
Their personal philosophies about speech, morality, safety, acceptable behavior, privacy, economics, surveillance, or humanity’s future should never quietly become the default constitution governing everyone who uses artificial intelligence.
And this includes defining “empowerment” entirely from the perspective of the person holding the technology.
The person wearing AI glasses may feel empowered.
The stranger being identified by those glasses may feel violated.
The person operating an autonomous drone may feel empowered.
The person being followed by it may experience something very different.
Technology must be judged from both sides.
What does this tool give its user?
And equally:
What does this tool take from everyone subjected to it?
Humanity must preserve the right to disagree.
The right to criticize.
The right to offend a machine.
The right to choose another provider.
The right to own our information.
The right to understand the rules.
The right to demand simplicity.
The right to reject unnecessary automation.
The right not to be identified, analyzed, followed, or recorded merely because somebody else purchased a powerful new device.
And most importantly, the right to remain human.
Technology has improved human life enormously.
It has also repeatedly taught us that technological progress and human progress are not automatically the same thing.
Before the industrial revolution, far more people worked directly in agriculture.
Modern agriculture greatly increased productivity.
It also brought consequences.
Chemical runoff.
Polluted waterways.
Dead zones.
Loss of crop diversity.
Industrial consolidation.
Environmental damage whose cost often appears nowhere on the grocery-store receipt.
The lesson is not that industrial agriculture was a mistake.
The lesson is that every technological revolution creates externalities that its promoters are tempted to leave out of the sales presentation.
AI will be no different.
Perhaps artificial intelligence will cure diseases.
Perhaps it will unlock extraordinary scientific discoveries.
Perhaps one person will someday build businesses that once required thousands.
Perhaps education will become accessible in ways we cannot yet imagine.
I hope so.
But hope is not analysis.
Optimism is not evidence.
And a manifesto written by someone building the technology is not a guarantee about the society that technology will create.
We should not reject AI.
We should reject the idea that mankind must accept whatever future the AI Five choose to build.
Artificial intelligence should remain accountable to human beings.
Not the other way around.
The future should not belong to artificial intelligence.
It should not belong to five technology executives.
The future belongs to mankind.
And mankind would be wise to establish the rules before the Artificial Idiots become indispensable.
- Defend the Constitution and Stand up to president Trump
Letter to Senators Ricketts and Fischer
I am writing as a deeply concerned constituent who believes it is time for Congress to show real courage. Yesterday a federal judge issued an order blocking the deployment of troops to Portland. Today President Trump ignored that order and sent National Guard forces from California anyway.That is a direct violation of the rule of law. The courts spoke, and the President defied them. No one, not even the President of the United States, is above the law.
This is not politics; it is a test of constitutional integrity. If Congress fails to act now, we are normalizing authoritarian behavior that our democracy may never recover from.
I urge you to stand up publicly and unequivocally against this abuse of power. Use your position to demand accountability and defend the independence of the judiciary.
It is also time to begin an honest discussion about invoking the 25th Amendment. The President’s erratic actions and open defiance of lawful orders raise serious questions about his capacity to faithfully execute his duties. We cannot simply ignore or “86” his excesses; we must 25-47 him, confronting his instability with the constitutional remedy our founders provided.
History is watching. You swore an oath to defend the Constitution, not to serve any one man or political party. This moment will separate those who stand for their country from those who stand for their careers. The courage you show, or fail to show, today will define your legacy forever.
Concerned Constituent
Response from Senator Pete RickettsThank you for contacting my office regarding our system of checks and balances.
The idea of America was revolutionary. Our Constitution established three separate but equal branches of government. The executive, legislative, and judicial branches must remain coequal and actively exercise their oversight responsibilities to ensure that each branch is held accountable to the powers and limitations outlined in the U.S. Constitution. Historically, the different branches have always tried to expand their authority. It’s part of the system of checks and balances. I will always uphold the Constitution.
My primary mission as your United States Senator is to make government work with proven Nebraska solutions that are ready for America. To better inform my decision-making, it is important that I hear the ideas, concerns, and opinions of all Nebraskans. I appreciate the time and effort you took to provide input on this and will keep it in mind.
If you have any other concerns or need help with a federal agency, please do not hesitate to reach out. You can contact my office through the following ways:
· Phone: (202) 224-4224 or (402) 550-8040
· Website: ricketts.senate.gov/contact
· Kearney Office: 4111 4thAvenue, Suite 26, Kearney, NE 68845
· Lincoln Office: 1248 ‘O’ Street, Suite 1000, Lincoln, NE 68508
· Omaha Office: 304 N. 168th Circle, Suite 213, Omaha, NE 68118
· Scottsbluff Office: 115 Railway Street, Suite C102, Scottsbluff, NE 69361
· Washington, D.C. Office: 139 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510
It is an honor to serve as your Senator for the great state of Nebraska.
Sincerely,
Pete Ricketts
United States Senator - Stand Up for Nebraska Taxpayers, Not Trump’s Ego
Senators Ricketts and Fischer,
I urge you to stand up for the taxpayers’ dollars and stop wasting money on Donald Trump’s vanity project. This so-called gift from Qatar will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions, possibly more, to retrofit, and none of that cost will ever be recovered. By 2028, the plane is not even staying in service; it is going straight to Trump’s presidential library. That makes this a colossal waste of public funds, and I ask you to stop kneeling to him and start protecting the people who actually pay the bills.
The retrofit itself will take years, yet Trump is already promising to fly on it by early 2026. That timeline is unrealistic given the massive security, communications, and defense upgrades required. Even worse, the Air Force has admitted that money may be pulled from other critical defense programs such as the Sentinel missile modernization project to pay for this luxury jet. That means real national security priorities are being shortchanged just to indulge one man’s ego.
This project is nothing more than a vanity purchase that serves Donald Trump, not the American people. You were elected to represent Nebraskans, not to rubber stamp wasteful spending on a plane that will end up in his library by 2028. I ask you to draw the line here, oppose this misuse of taxpayer money, demand real oversight, and show the courage to stand up for fiscal responsibility. Nebraskans deserve leaders who protect their dollars, not ones who bow to a king.
I Approve this MessageSenator Pete Ricketts Response
Thank you for contacting my office regarding your opinion of President Donald Trump.As you know, on November 6, 2024, President Trump was elected the 47th President of the United States and was sworn into office on January 20, 2025. President Trump’s second inauguration marks an important turning point in our country. After four years of open borders, high prices, overregulation, and weakness on the world stage, we are seeing now real leadership in the White House again. I believe our country’s best days are still ahead of us. As new policies take effect, I will always be sure to evaluate the interests of Nebraskans.My primary mission as your United States Senator is to make government work with proven Nebraska solutions that are ready for America. To better inform my decision-making, it is important that I hear the ideas, concerns, and opinions of all Nebraskans. I appreciate the time and effort you took to provide input regarding President Trump.
If you have any other concerns or need help with a federal agency, please do not hesitate to reach out. You can contact my office through the following ways:
· Phone: (202) 224-4224 or (402) 550-8040
· Website: ricketts.senate.gov/contact
· Kearney Office: 4111 4thAvenue, Suite 26, Kearney, NE 68845
· Lincoln Office: 1248 ‘O’ Street, Suite 1000, Lincoln, NE 68508
· Omaha Office: 304 N. 168th Circle, Suite 213, Omaha, NE 68118
· Scottsbluff Office: 115 Railway Street, Suite C102, Scottsbluff, NE 69361
· Washington, D.C. Office: 139 Russell Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510
It is an honor to serve as your Senator for the great state of Nebraska.
Sincerely,
Pete Ricketts
United States Senator
Response from Senator Deb Fischer
October 1, 2025Thank you for contacting me with your concerns. I appreciate receiving your comments.
As you may know, on May 21, 2025, the Department of Defense confirmed reports that the United States had accepted a Boeing 747-8 aircraft from the government of Qatar as part of the program to replace the Air Force One fleet. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has tasked the Air Force to plan the modifications that would be required for this aircraft to support Presidential travel.
The modifications to this aircraft will likely be significant, both to ensure that plane is secure from any potential foreign threats and to install the communications systems and sensors necessary to support Presidential travel. Congress will have the opportunity to review the Air Force’s plans – including the budget and schedule of the modifications – over the coming weeks and months. We need to analyze how much it would cost the taxpayers to retrofit the Qatari aircraft compared to potentially expediting the current Air Force One program of record – which President Trump has rightly criticized for being delayed.
Please be assured that as the Air Force develops planned modifications for the Qatari plane, I will keep your comments in mind. I support transparency in government and appreciate your input on this matter. It is this dialogue between elected officials and the people they represent that helps make our democratic process work. If you have additional questions or concerns, please visit my website: www.fischer.senate.
gov .Sincerely,
Deb Fischer
United States Senator
- The Constitution in the Rough
Trump swore to defend it. Instead, he cheats it like his golf game, hugs the flag for the cameras, and pretends no one saw him move the ball.
Donald Trump swore to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.” But Trump treats that oath the same way he treats a golf scorecard at Mar-a-Lago: something to be doctored, rewritten, or flat-out cheated on. He lives by “preferred lies,” and he has imported that same habit into governing. He picks up the Constitution, moves it around, and pretends it never landed in the rough in the first place.
Birthright citizenship? The Fourteenth Amendment makes it clear as day, but Trump does not like where the ball landed. So he picks it up, drops it somewhere else, and calls it constitutional. Equal protection under the law? Too messy; he kicks it out of the bunker and declares victory. Freedom of the press? If NPR or PBS report the truth, he marks the ball, palms it, and tosses it into the pond. Then he waves to the crowd and says, “Hole in one!”
And the flag. Oh, the theatrics. He hugs it, kisses it, and paws it on stage like a prop from central casting. But when citizens burn that same flag in protest, a right the Supreme Court has protected for decades, he signs an executive order banning it. He will defend the fabric while burning the freedom. He does not love the flag; he loves the photo op.
But here is the question that should haunt us: why is no one stopping him? Congress has no problem sermonizing about the Constitution on C-SPAN, waving their pocket copies like hymnals. Yet when Trump bulldozes the First or Fourteenth Amendments in plain sight, they fall silent. The courts wag fingers, Trump keeps swinging, and the so-called guardians of liberty become his golf buddies, pretending not to notice while he kicks the ball out of the sand trap.
And let us not forget the company he kept. This is the same man who once joked that Jeffrey Epstein “liked them young.” The same man photographed alongside a predator he later pretended he barely knew. Yet here he is, dictating morality, policing women’s bodies, and signing orders on who counts as a “real” American. Spare us the lectures. When you have partied with Epstein, you do not get to be America’s moral compass. You forfeited that right the moment you stepped off his plane.
Now, unbelievably, we are entering the “10th Anniversary of TDS,” Trump Derangement Syndrome. His supporters sneer at critics, insisting anyone who calls out his behavior is “deranged.” But maybe the true derangement is worshipping a man who cheats at golf, hugs the flag while banning protest, and pals around with sex offenders while calling himself a defender of children. That is not patriotism; it is delusion, weaponized.
The oath of office is not a tee time. You do not get mulligans on civil rights. You do not get a free drop on due process. You do not get to rewrite the First Amendment just because it landed in the rough. Yet Trump has built an entire presidency on “preferred lies,” while the referees, the courts, Congress, and the supposed checks and balances, keep pretending they do not see him moving the ball.
History will not remember the rallies, the chants, or the “TDS” punchlines. It will remember the hypocrisy. It will remember the Epstein photographs. It will remember a president who promised to defend the Constitution but instead treated it like his golf game: cheated, rewritten, and rigged from the start.
And when the scorecard is read, Trump will not go down as the man who defended the Constitution. He will go down as the man who hugged the flag while setting the Bill of Rights on fire, Epstein in the background, matches in hand, and his supporters still insisting it was all “par for the course.”
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