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COGNITIVE LIBERTY RESEARCH · 06

Keep the Human Mind Free

A deliberately normative declaration arguing for a pro-technology third path: capable AI that remains visible, contestable, limited, reversible, and answerable to human dignity.

Normative manifesto Evidence reviewed: Jul 27, 2026 Spanish parity reviewed: Jul 27, 2026 Rights-focused and non-operational
← Cognitive liberty center Review retained sources

DEFINITION AND CENTRAL CLAIM

A twelve-point cognitive-liberty manifesto

A deliberately normative declaration arguing for a pro-technology third path: capable AI that remains visible, contestable, limited, reversible, and answerable to human dignity.

Central claim

Society need not choose between blind submission to automated efficiency and rejection of technological progress; it can build powerful systems within enforceable human-rights boundaries.

EVIDENCE-QUALIFIED SYNTHESIS

What the retained material supports

Labels identify the character of support behind each point. They do not imply that every cited source has equal authority or that a documented mechanism proves a broad behavioral effect.

Normative proposal

The manifesto affirms beneficial uses of AI in accessibility, medicine, education, science, public administration, disaster response, and creative work while arguing that benefits increase the need for limits. [3]

Normative proposal

Its twelve declarations connect mental privacy, prediction limits, transparent AI identity, emotional-dependency safeguards, explainability, appeal, and human responsibility. [3] [8] [17]

Normative proposal

The “right to be more than your archive” is a normative demand for correction, temporal context, and accountable forgetting; present products offer partial memory controls, not a general guarantee that learned influence is fully removed from every model or backup. [3] [30]

Normative proposal

The “right to an open door” proposes practical autonomy through exit, export, deletion, visible memory controls, and freedom from manipulative retention; implementation and legal enforceability vary by product and jurisdiction. [3] [30]

EVIDENCE CAUTIONS

What this route should not be used to claim

  • The manifesto intentionally uses moral and civic language. Its policy proposals require separate legal drafting, cost analysis, enforcement design, and democratic adoption.
  • Terms such as mental sovereignty and psychological continuity are valuable organizing concepts but do not have one universal technical definition.

RIGHTS-PRESERVING SAFEGUARDS

Practical boundaries identified by the synthesis

  • Adopt the twelve principles as a design and policy checklist, while separately testing legal applicability and technical feasibility.
  • Make AI identity, role, memory, and consequential decision paths legible to users.
  • Design for export, deletion, disengagement, and restored human agency instead of lock-in.
  • Keep responsibility with identifiable people and institutions throughout the system lifecycle.

OPEN QUESTIONS

Questions the current evidence does not settle

An open question is not a prediction, a finding, or a claim that a capability is already widespread.

  1. Which principles can be implemented directly in product design, and which require legislation or sector-specific professional duties?
  2. What evidence would demonstrate that an AI service enables genuinely uncoerced exit rather than merely formal account deletion?

RETAINED SOURCES

Selected records underlying this public synthesis

Submitted reports, official law, peer-reviewed research, independent reviews, civil-society principles, and secondary reporting are labeled separately. Inclusion is not blanket endorsement.

  1. Submitted research source

    Keep the Human Mind Free

    Submitted manifesto; normative claims are labeled as principles rather than empirical findings.

  2. Official record

    A/76/380: Interim report of the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief — Freedom of thought — opens in a new tab

    Authoritative for the Special Rapporteur’s analysis; not a treaty amendment or court judgment.

  3. Official record

    UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of Neurotechnology — opens in a new tab

    Global normative recommendation adopted by UNESCO Member States; not a binding treaty.

  4. Official record

    NIST Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework 1.0 — opens in a new tab

    Voluntary risk-management framework emphasizing governance, mapping, measurement, management, documentation, and redress.

  5. Technical documentation

    ChatGPT Memory FAQ — opens in a new tab

    Product documentation for memory controls; behavior and availability can change by account, plan, and release.