Manj Chenna

The values layer · Constitution

A constitution for AI

The values a model holds are real whether or not anyone wrote them down. A constitution, in the loose sense, is just the decision to write them down: to make them explicit, public, and amendable, instead of leaving them implicit and beyond reach.

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Manj Chenna · Founder, Sanctity · Building real human oversight of AI · Amsterdam

A constitution for AI is a metaphor, and a useful one: the move from values buried in a model's weights to values that are written, visible, and contestable. The point is not a legal document. It is that explicit values can be argued with and amended, and implicit ones can only be discovered by being harmed. Making the values layer for AI legible this way is part of how a system earns trust rather than asking for it, and it lines up with the human-oversight duties arriving as the EU AI Act comes into force.

ImplicitTODAYValues live in the weightsNobody wrote them downYou discover them by being harmedNothing to amendWritten downA CONSTITUTIONValues live in a charterPublished, with authorsYou can read them before the decisionAmendable, on the recordTHE VALUES ARE REAL EITHER WAY. ONLY ONE VERSION CAN BE ARGUED WITH.
ImplicitTODAYValues live in the weightsNobody wrote them downYou discover them by being harmedNothing to amendWritten downA CONSTITUTIONValues live in a charterPublished, with authorsYou can read them before the decisionAmendable, on the recordTHE VALUES ARE REAL EITHER WAY. ONLY ONE VERSION CAN BEARGUED WITH.
A constitution, in the loose sense, does not give a system values. It writes down the ones it already has, where you can see them and change them.

Why explicit beats implicit

Because you cannot govern what you cannot see. Implicit values are unaccountable by construction: no one signed them, no one can point to them, and no one can change them except by retraining. Written values can be reviewed, challenged, and improved. The act of writing them down is itself a check on power, the same reason real constitutions exist.

The human-oversight duty

A constitution for AI also names who must stay in command. As the law comes into force, meaningful human oversight of high-risk systems shifts from good practice toward obligation, and writing that duty into a system's own charter, not just the regulation, is how it becomes real rather than filed. The constitution is where the values and the oversight meet.

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See the values layer for AI and the regulator is not your strategy.