AI: Let Us Rise to Protect the Sovereignty of the Human Mind

An open letter for signature

We are living through a decisive moment in human history.

Digital transformations have profoundly reshaped the way we live. Screens, networks and artificial intelligence now shape our interactions, our decisions, our learning and even our imagination. The immediate effects of this evolution are well known: addiction, psychological and cognitive disorders, disinformation, manipulation, and threats to democracy and the rule of law.

Yet beyond these visible risks lies a deeper question: what place do we wish to grant the human mind in a world increasingly governed by ever more powerful technological systems?

AI-enhanced digital technology constitutes a meta-technology: one capable of integrating all others, amplifying their effects and extending into every sphere of existence. Our most ordinary activities — communicating, buying, learning, working, entertaining ourselves — now pass through interfaces that organise our behaviour and guide our choices. The expansionary capacity of such meta-technologies is virtually limitless. They are no longer mere tools, but structuring ecosystems.

We do not dispute the immense real and potential benefits of these innovations. Yet their power demands a new requirement: safeguarding the sovereignty of the human mind. What is at stake is not simply how technologies are used, nor only the immediate risks associated with them. It is the very shape of our existence — and above all that of future generations. The constant optimisation of behaviour, the continuous capture of data, and the algorithmic structuring of our social environment are gradually transforming not only how we perceive and think, but how we act and inhabit the world.

Faced with this transformation, existing legal frameworks — necessary though they are — are no longer sufficient. Current regulations, including those adopted by the European Union, protect users’ data. But they do not protect users from the effects of the technological ecosystem itself.

It is time to open a new chapter.

Just as the Declaration of the Rights of Man marked a historic milestone by establishing a new standard of human dignity, we now require a marker of comparable significance — one that solemnly affirms the inalienable value of the sovereignty of the human mind.

For this reason, we call for the drafting and adoption of a Universal Declaration on the Sovereignty of the Human Mind.

This is not about rejecting progress, but about guiding it.

Not about slowing innovation, but about giving it direction.

Not about cultivating fear, but about affirming an ambition: a harmonious coexistence

between human intelligence and the technologies it has created.

Such a Declaration would provide a shared reference point and a common direction, capable of bringing together the educational, legal, scientific and civic initiatives that are today dispersed. It would send a clear signal to institutions, technology companies and citizens worldwide: the sovereignty of the mind is a non-negotiable principle.

We therefore call upon researchers, teachers, jurists, public officials, creators and citizens who wish to reaffirm, in the face of triumphant technical imperatives, the beauty and inalienability of the human mind.

Today we launch the initiative Rise for the Mind. It falls to us to inscribe the sovereignty of the mind into the history now unfolding, by placing it at the heart of public debate, until the international recognition of a Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Human Mind is achieved.

Join this initiative.

Let us make the sovereignty of the mind a shared horizon.

For Rise for the Mind

Mark Hunyadi