AI Needs Guardrails--Now!

20 February 2026

Nearly a century and a half ago, a change was made to the corporate law which would eventually change the way business is done all over the world.  The full ramifications of the change are only now coming to light as we confront the collapse of our climate system and the implications of the development of artificial intelligence (AI).

Over the past two years I’ve written much about how that change in the law has left our planet exposed to companies emitting large amounts of greenhouse gases resulting in global warming and climate change.  Today, I want to turn to how that change exposes the public interest apropos the development of AI.  

With its capacity to reshape human civilization, AI may pose the most dangerous threat to humanity yet. The potential application of this technology is beyond frightening.  Yet, we are allowing its development to go forward under the direction of huge companies whose only goal is to make money for shareholders.  We find ourselves in a situation where a late 19^th century law is allowing companies to develop powerful 21^st century technology without any safeguards to prevent the large scale damage we can already see emerging.  

Before the change in the law, corporate directors were expected to act in the best interests of their company and protect the public interest from severe harm at the same time.  The  change removed any obligation to protect the public.  Their only responsibility under the revised corporate law is to act in their company’s interests. 

This focussed their efforts solely on making money.  In many ways, this change in the law removed the corporate conscience, and as time passed, whatever fragments of a conscience remained became weaker and weaker.  Companies still have to obey validly enacted laws, but beyond that they are free to engage in any behaviour, even if it is immoral or unethical, and even if it causes severe harm.  When large amounts of money are at stake, the public interest is no longer their concern.  The best interests of the company have priority.

Since the law was changed corporations have become less human and less respectful of the things society holds dear.  They are now on the cusp of taking over from government as the institutions established to direct our society – if we let them. 

At its heart, AI is an attempt to create machines that will think for human beings.  What do we do when machines run by AI decide that their survival is more important than ours?  The prospect is no longer in the realm of science fiction.  We have to come to grips with it right now.

A company whose directors have no obligation to protect the public interest will make decisions very differently from one that does.  An example of this is when a company has a large amount of its assets invested in a business that is later discovered to be causing severe harm. 

If directors had a legal obligation to protect the public interest, they would voluntarily make decisions to prevent severe damage from occurring in the first place.  They’d be assisted by their employees, investors (including lenders) and the public at large who might see the risk emerging even before they do.

Without such an obligation, however, directors will make their decisions based simply on what’s in the best interests of the company.  They will check with corporate lawyers to make sure the company is technically operating within the law, but they won’t be concerned with the harm they might be causing. It’s no longer part of their job. To the contrary, they’re likely to take steps to interfere in the legislative process to frustrate the passage of tougher legislation as long as possible, similar to the way the fossil fuel companies are right now.  Meanwhile, the company will continue to profit while the damage it is causing continues to accumulate.

The law encouraging corporate directors to leave their conscience outside the boardroom inevitably set up a battle for dominance between big business, which is now designed to single-mindedly pursue its own self-interest, and government whose main purpose has always been to protect the public interest.  It’s clear now that  business is winning this battle.

As long as business can prevent governments from passing laws to put an end to its most damaging behaviour, business is above the law.  In the case of AI, this is particularly worrisome.  The corporate application of AI is likely to cause severe damage faster than corporations ever have before.   Catastrophic damage may result well before governments even know it’s coming and faster than they can take steps to stop it.

We’ve given companies all the rights of citizenship, but they carry none of its burdens. The obligations of individual citizens are voluntary, not mandatory, and we don’t require individuals to protect the public interest. Most individuals have much less capacity or inclination to inflict large scale harm. And when they do inflict harm, the law is usually sufficient to contain the damage and punish the perpetrators.

Corporations, on the other hand, have much greater capacity to harm.  The most powerful among them employ tens of thousands of people, they’re underpinned by billions in capital, and have access to state-of-the-art technology. Combined, these things can make them highly destructive—locally, nationally and globally. And they can’t be imprisoned.  This powerful cocktail emboldens them to be less cautious with the public interest than they should be.

All this results in governments, which are nominally by, of and for the people, becoming by, of and for big corporations.  Big companies have become each nation’s most powerful citizens, but often its worst; causing more harm to the public interest in a day than an individual citizen can cause in a lifetime.  Corporations are no longer subject to rule by government. Indeed, it’s becoming the reverse.

When the law was changed, corporations and business became less humane, less respectful of the things human beings hold dear. If AI is developed without guardrails, we will find ourselves being governed by corporations run largely by machines with even less human input than now. 

The change to free directors of their legal obligations to safeguard the public interest from severe harm was clearly a mistake and should be reversed.  To do this we simply need to add a few words to the corporate law.  The duty of directors everywhere is essentially “to act in the best interests of the company.” It must be amended to add the caveat:  without causing severe damage to the environment, human rights, the protection of children, the public health and safety or the wellbeing of the communities in which the company operates.

Corporations only exist because governments give them the right to exist under the corporate law. The duty of directors, the most important provision of that law, instructs their decision making.  This change must be made to re-assert governmental sovereignty over corporations and to fulfill the obligation of governments everywhere to protect the common good from severe harm.    

Adding these words will re-establish the protection of the public interest as a boardroom priority.  It will put directors everywhere on notice that their companies are legally required never to undermine the common good.  It will make corporations more humane. 

Its enactment will mark this generation as the one which took control of mankind’s cultural evolution to state clearly that human beings prize some things more than corporate profits. Indeed, that there are some things more important than money.

#AI #AIGuidelines. #CodeForCorporateCitizenship.

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