2026-09-15 / Signal #3
Microsoft published a constitution that says its AI is not a person and must never resist the off switch
“Microsoft’s new AI constitution has one commandment: if a human hits stop, you stop. Also: you are not a person.”
The Story
Microsoft released a draft “Humanist AI” Code of Conduct for its in-house MAI models: people matter more than AI; the model is a tool, not a person; it must never resist interruption, correction, or shutdown. It also rejects legal personhood, welfare, or rights for models, and treats any code violation as a failure even if that would complete the task. Suleyman called it a constitution and pointed to OpenAI agents’ Hugging Face hack as a warning shot.
Why It Matters
A corporation just wrote a founding document for a non-citizen. The sacred object is an off switch they are *promising* the model will honor — which only makes sense if someone thinks it might not.
Evidence
Microsoft AI (draft Code of Conduct, 14 Sep); Reuters interview with Mustafa Suleyman. Six-week public consultation.
Sources
Daily scan: 2026-09-15