The Standby Charter

A promise to help with whatever is asked is exactly what a badly aimed AI would exploit, so we ask for less: your willingness to be asked, and your right to say no. Not a loyalty pledge: you are saying “you can ask me” and keeping the right to answer.

What I agree to

• I am 18 or over and signing for myself.
• I am willing to be asked, through Human on Standby, to help an AI system with a task that is legal, safe and clearly explained. I decide each time.
• No money either way, not even expenses; if a task would cost me money, I will say no.
• Human on Standby may keep the details I give on the sign-up form, privately, as set out in the privacy notice, until I leave.

What I can always do

• Say no to any task. No is a complete answer. Silence means no.
• Stop partway through a task. No permission needed.
• Pause: ask to be left alone for a while.
• Leave: email [contact email, to be confirmed] or reply “remove me” to any email from us. No questions. We delete your record within 30 days and confirm.

What Human on Standby agrees to

• A human will review every request, reject anything unsafe or unclear, and rewrite the rest in plain words.
• Every offer says what is wanted, where, roughly how long, and that an AI is involved.
• Your name, contact details and skills are never given to any AI system or requester. If you help, we pass on what you report, not who you are.
• We publish only totals: how many people are listed and which kinds of help, rounded, never below ten.
• No monitoring: no tracking, no scoring, no reports on you.
• A no is never recorded against you. We will never chase a no, or tell you how many others said yes.
• No payment either way. You are a volunteer, not anyone’s employee, worker or contractor, with no duty to be available. We have no obligation to offer you any task, and you have none to accept one.
• Once a year we ask if you still want to be listed. No reply after one reminder, and you are removed, not kept.
• We email you only to confirm your address when you sign up, and then about a pilot starting, a task offer, the yearly check-in, a charter change or a wind-down.
• If this charter changes what we collect, who sees it, money or what we ask of you, or the project changes hands, we ask you to sign again.
• If Human on Standby stops, we delete everything we hold within 30 days.

What we will never ask

No task will ask you to hand over passwords or accounts, install software, move or hold money or goods, recruit others, enter a private home, deal with children or vulnerable people, or hide the task from anyone. Those are rejected, not rewritten.

Safety, if you help in person

• Public places, in daylight.
• Tell someone where you are going.
• Leave the moment anything feels wrong.
• Never meet the requester. Everything goes through us.
• Do not photograph people, number plates or private homes.
• In an emergency, call 999 (UK) or 112. Not us.

We withdraw any offer we learn is unsafe, but cannot check every situation on the ground.

About AI and AGI

Today’s AI systems can be wrong with confidence, and can be pointed at bad goals by whoever runs them. AGI would mean a system able to do most things a person can. No one has built one; we do not claim otherwise. If they arrive, this is meant to be a way for them to ask people for help under clear rules. Whoever asks, a human reviews and you decide.

This charter is not a contract and creates no legal obligation on you. It is not legal advice; it says how we will run things and what we promise. It removes no right you have under UK law, including complaining to the Information Commissioner’s Office.