Asilomar AI Principles
Future of Life Institute (Beneficial AI 2017 conference) · 6 January 2017
A 2017 list of 23 principles for beneficial AI that many leading researchers and executives signed. It set the vocabulary for later debates but created no obligations, and nobody tracks whether signatories follow it.
What it calls for
- Alignment research
- Safety evaluations
- Transparency
- Human oversight
- Benefit sharing
- Anti concentration
- Pause/moratorium
Scope
23 principles; signed by ~1,200 AI/robotics researchers and ~2,500 others (incl. Hawking, Musk, Hassabis, LeCun) per FLI's signatory page
What actually happened
No enforcement mechanism was ever attached; the principles are cited in later documents (e.g., they are referenced in California's 2018 ACR 215 legislative resolution endorsing them) but no signatory institution is bound by them. FLI itself later moved to harder asks: the 2023 'Pause' letter and the 2025 'Statement on Superintelligence' (https://superintelligence-statement.org/). Principle 22 ('Recursive Self-Improvement... strict safety and control measures') and Principle 23 ('Common Good') have no reporting or audit trail. Looked for: any signatory compliance reporting - none found.