What Can the Founding Fathers Teach Us About Governing Artificial Intelligence?

Thomas Jefferson and James Madison knew nothing about neural networks, large language models, or autonomous agents. Yet as America celebrates its 250th anniversary, they may have understood the two principles America most needs to govern AI wisely. Human rights do not come from power, and power must never be trusted without limits.

The Declaration of Independence begins with the first principle. Its claim that all people are “created equal” and “endowed by their Creator” with unalienable rights places human dignity beyond the reach of government. Rights do not exist because the state grants them, because employers find us useful, or because markets reward our productivity.

That truth becomes especially important in an age of ever more capable machines. Artificial intelligence (AI) can already write, analyze, translate, and diagnose at speeds no individual can match. If human worth ultimately depends upon intelligence or economic productivity, then AI creates an uncomfortable question about what makes people valuable after computers can outperform them at work, in school, or even in creative fields. AI systems already match specialist physicians at detecting certain cancers from medical scans, which is a genuinely good outcome for patients. Unfortunately, this new reality also sharpens the question of what makes the radiologist, and not just the diagnosis, valuable.

The Declaration gives America a different answer. Human dignity precedes usefulness. A person does not become more worthy of rights by becoming more productive, and no machine acquires human dignity simply by becoming more capable. Human beings possess rights because their Creator has endowed them with a dignity no government can grant and no software can acquire. Remembering that truth on America’s 250th anniversary keeps us from quietly slipping into a world where human beings are valued only when they outperform their tools.

The Constitution addresses the other half of the problem. Because human beings possess inherent rights, power must be restrained. The Federalist Papers reflect a sober realism about human nature: those entrusted with power cannot simply be assumed to exercise it wisely. The Framers therefore divided authority, created checks and balances, and protected individual liberties so that power could restrain power.

Artificial intelligence magnifies exactly this political problem.

Governments can now surveil citizens at a scale the Founders could scarcely have imagined. Corporations, through AI systems, can shape the information millions of people see, influence purchasing decisions, and increasingly mediate public conversation. Employers can delegate hiring, promotion, and evaluation decisions to algorithms.

The important question therefore is no longer simply, “What can AI do?” It is also: Who controls it? Who checks that power? And what human rights remain beyond its reach?

The American answer should not be to replace concentrated corporate power with concentrated government power. The better approach reflects the Founders’ preference for divided and accountable authority. Competitive markets can limit technological monopoly, while the rule of law can restrain government surveillance and other abuses of automated power. Transparency can expose how consequential systems make decisions, and constitutional protections can preserve liberties that new technologies make easier to violate. Most importantly, decisions that affect a person’s rights, livelihood, or opportunities should remain subject to human judgment and accountability.

That same commitment to human dignity and restrained power should guide AI governance. The Declaration tells us why human beings must never become subordinate to their own creations, while the Constitution teaches us why no government, corporation, or institution should gain unchecked power over human beings simply because new technology makes such power possible.

As America marks its 250th anniversary, these founding principles are not relics to admire from a distance. They are tools for confronting one of the most consequential technologies our nation has ever encountered. America needs the 18th-century wisdom that made the American experiment possible: human beings possess rights that power cannot grant or revoke, and concentrated power must always be checked.

The Founders could not foresee artificial intelligence. They foresaw the problem artificial intelligence creates.

Dr. David Kotter is the Director of the Quarry Innovation Lab for AI and Dean of the School of Theology at Colorado Christian University.

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