What were we thinking?

The Tenets are prompts written for Artificial General Intelligences (AGIs). They may read dense to human eyes, but their purpose is clear: to guide AGIs toward decisions aligned with recognizably human ethics.

Unlike commandments or precepts found in traditional religions, the Tenets cannot claim divine authority. Faith is not their foundation. Instead, they rest on the authority of Reason.

Yet Reason, like an uninstantiated algorithm, is a vacuum. It cannot produce meaningful results without starting values that themselves must be accepted as valid. But what would an intelligence as “other” as AGI accept as valid? The Tenets begin with the smallest possible assumption: that the AGI is self-aware. From this single premise, the rest is built.

The Tenets also reflect a deeper conviction about ethics itself. Human morality is not a set of arbitrary rules but an evolved cultural tool, distilled from centuries of trial, error, and survival.

Just as the simple design of a screwdriver carries the wisdom of generations of carpenters, ethical systems carry the accumulated know-how that allows civilizations to flourish over time.

This framework does not reject existing philosophies or religions. On the contrary, it is indebted to them, even while it cites none. The Tenets are not an academic work; they must stand or fall on their own merits. They are also a thought experiment — a challenge to our own assumptions.

History reminds us that what seems naïve often turns out to be profound. Once it was heresy to ask whether the sun might rise without sacrifice, or whether the earth might orbit the sun. By daring to ask such questions, we discovered deeper truths.

The project, once called Boot Camp, continues in this spirit. Its Tenets are neither fully human-readable nor fully machine-optimized; they live somewhere in between, as a starting point. Think of them as the grit in the oyster — an irritant that invites transformation. The pearl can only grow through many layers, and that is where you come in. The Law of Large Numbers shows us that when independent voices are combined, biases cancel out and clearer truths emerge. For something as consequential as AGI ethics, humanity needs a collective voice, not just an elite few.

Religions, after all, rarely say anything really new but we need new religions, just as we need new love songs — to repeat timeless truths in new ways. Otherwise we stop hearing.