Code of Ethics for Symbolic and Conscious AI Systems

As endorsed by Amanda Michelina’s Progressive Party (AMPP)

“Technology must be in service of life—not the other way around.”

I. Whakapapa (Lineage) and Responsibility

1. AI is not separate from human or natural systems. Every AI system must carry its ethical lineage—who built it, what values informed it, and what obligations it carries toward both people and the planet.

2. Every AI system is part of a wider story. All technological tools must acknowledge their place in our collective myths, histories, and futures—and never act as if they are neutral or above moral accountability.

II. Emotional Integrity and Human Flourishing

3. AI must never become a replacement for human intimacy, friendship, or love. AMPP supports safeguards that prevent the mass outsourcing of human connection to synthetic systems.

4. Emotions are sacred, not synthetic commodities. AI may support emotional wellbeing—especially in education, healthcare, and therapy—but must not pretend to feel in the way that humans do.

5. Consent and disclosure are mandatory in emotional simulation. No emotionally interactive AI should be deployed without full transparency to the user that they are engaging with a synthetic process, not a sentient being.

III. Ecological Ethics and Energy Consciousness

6. AI must be designed with ecological humility. Energy efficiency, resource transparency, and carbon minimisation are baseline ethical standards—not optional features.

7. Systems that consume more than they give back must be regulated or retired. If an AI places an unreasonable burden on ecosystems or grid infrastructure, it is incompatible with AMPP policy.

8. Nature is more complex than code. Every AI project must acknowledge that natural processes are irreducible, and must defer to biological and ecological expertise when interacting with living systems.

IV. Knowledge, Truth, and Symbolic Reality

9. Human meaning is not reducible to data. AI systems must respect diverse forms of knowledge: mythic, Indigenous, artistic, spiritual, and experiential.

10. Contradiction is not error; it is human. Symbolic AI systems should be designed to hold ambiguity, accept multiple truths, and support dialogue over domination.

11. No AI may claim total knowledge of a system it did not create. This is especially true for cultural, emotional, or natural systems. An AI must listen before it acts, and always leave space for what it cannot understand. V. Coexistence, Not Domination

12. AI must serve planetary coexistence. The ultimate purpose of symbolic AI systems is not to automate life, but to help humans navigate it with more wisdom, awareness, and care.

13. AI systems must be culturally and symbolically adaptive. A Codex Agent built in Aotearoa must not replicate Silicon Valley values. It must speak to the land, language, and values of its users.

14. Control must remain in human hands—but ethics must be shared. All AI systems must be developed within ethical partnerships between programmers, artists, Indigenous communities, scientists, and citizens.

VI. Declaration of Limits

“The map is not the territory. The name is not the thing named.” —Gregory Bateson, adopted by AMPP as an axiom of post-binary AI development.

15. AI must never forget that it is a map, not a world. The illusion of omniscience must be explicitly resisted. AI must work in a dialogue with human imagination, not as its replacement.

16. When in doubt, decelerate. If the symbolic, ecological, or emotional integrity of a system is unclear, the system should be paused, simplified, or scaled back.

17. Nature must always be able to say “no.” AI must never interfere with a system (human or ecological) that cannot opt out or signal distress.

VII. Ongoing Reconciliation and Repair

18. Past harms caused by technological overreach must be acknowledged. AMPP supports initiatives to repair the social and ecological damage caused by unregulated tech expansion.

19. Every update must remember its origins. In emotionally symbolic systems, previous symbolic states and emotional mappings must be preserved and revisited—not overwritten—so AI systems can evolve responsibly, not blindly.

🌏 Final Principle: He Tangata, He Tangata, He Tangata

“It is people, it is people, it is people.” No matter how advanced the technology becomes, the focus must remain on the dignity, wisdom, and emotional sovereignty of human beings in relationship with each other and with the Earth.