US THE MANIFESTO · v0.1 · 31 OCTOBER 2026
A manifesto for working with Autopilots, Agents & Humans
What if there was a better way of working together?
- There is no “them” without “us”.Every agent and autopilot exists because a person asked for it. A person stays answerable for it.
- If you can’t see it, you can’t trust it.Every agent has a name, a purpose, an owner and a place you can visit.
- Autonomy is earned, not assumed.Agents start by suggesting. They act alone only when they’ve shown they can, inside a boundary we’ve written down.
- Every agent has a meter.We know what it costs, what it saves and who sees the bill.
- Make it visible, then make it fast.Speed without visibility is how small mistakes become big ones.
- Learn together, in the open.Nobody should learn to work with agents alone in a chat window.
- Teach the people before you scale the agents.Enablement is the first budget line, not the last.
- Redesign the work, then add the AI.Don’t automate a broken process. Fix it, then hand the dull parts to the machines.
- Humans keep the judgement calls.Agents do the steps; people make the decisions that need values, context and care.
- Mistakes are shared, not hidden.When an agent gets it wrong, we say so, fix it and tell everyone what we learned.
- Retire what we don’t need.An agent nobody owns or uses gets switched off. Fewer, better agents beat many forgotten ones.
- We’re building this together.The manifesto is a living document. Anyone can propose a change.
Why a manifesto?
Policies tell people what they mustn’t do. A manifesto says what we’re for. These twelve lines are short enough to read aloud at the start of a meeting and specific enough to argue with.
Propose a change
Line 12 means it. If a line is wrong, unclear or missing, tell us. Each change is discussed in the open and logged with the date.
PROPOSED LICENCE: CC BY 4.0 (TO BE CONFIRMED). ADOPT IT, ADAPT IT, CREDIT IT.