It's Not the AI - It's Each of Us! Ten Commandments for the Wise & Responsible Use of AI

2025-11-18

AI Summary

This paper addresses the anthropological reflection prompted by AI’s deep integration into society: the central concern is not AI’s intrinsic nature, but rather how humans “shape” AI through data practices and design choices—and how this shaping, in turn, reconfigures human values, self-perception, and behavioral norms. Drawing on Floridi and Cowls’ five principles of AI ethics, the EU AI Act, and the Vienna Declaration framework, the study conducts a normative analysis. It innovatively proposes an actionable “Ten Commandments for AI Use,” translating abstract ethical principles into concrete, context-sensitive responsibilities for individuals in domestic and professional settings. The contribution lies in extending AI governance from macro-level regulatory frameworks to everyday ethical practice, advancing a digital humanist paradigm grounded in human dignity, societal well-being, and democratic accountability—thereby enhancing public technological literacy and ethical agency. (149 words)

Technology Category

• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: Societal Impact of AI
• Humans and AI: Learning Human Values and Preferences
• Natural Language Processing: Ethics — Bias, Fairness, Transparency & Privacy

Application Category

• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Fairness and ethical considerations in crowd work and in human-in-the-loop AI systems
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Accountability, Transparency, and Ethics for personalization
• Responsible Web: Fairness, accountability, transparency and ethics of web technologies

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer futuristic; it is a daily companion shaping our private and work lives. While AI simplifies our lives, its rise also invites us to rethink who we are - and who we wish to remain - as humans. Even if AI does not think, feel, or desire, it learns from our behavior, mirroring our collective values, biases, and aspirations. The question, then, is not what AI is, but what we are allowing it to become through data, computing power, and other parameters "teaching" it - and, even more importantly, who we are becoming through our relationship with AI. As the EU AI Act and the Vienna Manifesto on Digital Humanism emphasize, technology must serve human dignity,social well-being, and democratic accountability. In our opinion, responsible use of AI is not only a matter of code nor law, but also of conscientious practice: how each of us engages and teaches others to use AI at home and at work. We propose Ten Commandments for the Wise and Responsible Use of AI are meant as guideline for this very engagement. They closely align with Floridi and Cowls' five guiding principles for AI in society - beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, justice, and explicability.

Problem

• Establishing ethical guidelines for responsible human-AI interaction practices
• Addressing how AI reflects and amplifies human values and biases
• Developing principles for AI to serve human dignity and social wellbeing

Innovation

• Ten Commandments guide responsible AI use
• AI principles align with human dignity values
• Conscientious practice shapes AI human relationship