Our AI North Star
In 2025, Dream.Org concluded that the trajectory of AI is one of the most pressing issues facing the country right now, and given our organizational focus on justice, tech, and climate, we need to be part of the conversation. AI, like technology generally, is neither good nor bad, but we have an active role to play in using it to create opportunities for the communities we serve, while reducing its harms. Likewise, AI’s increased role in our economy, politics, and culture is inevitable, but what form it takes is unwritten.
Since then, we generated a set of “North Star” principles that will inform our internal and external policies. Our entire staff, which comes to this issue with a variety of opinions and experiences, was engaged in creating it. We are now sharing it with trusted partners, and eventually more broadly, with the goal of identifying others who are willing to wrestle with these difficult questions and help forge an “AI for All.”
Dream.Org’s Principles for an AI for All
“The Right Tech, The Right Way”
Principle #1: Dream.Org’s role is to support AI that enhances rather than replaces human agency, and that helps historically marginalized communities rather than simply enriching the powerful. However challenging this goal may seem, this must be the value that drives us.
Principle #2: Dream.Org’s approach to learning about how AI works should be informed both by experts and the lived experience of people impacted by it – whether those lived experiences come through the justice system, the tech sector, or through the impact of AI on the environment.
Principle #3: Dream.Org believes that the increased energy usage driven by AI should be powered by clean energy and efficient code, and that AI’s environmental impact should be considered as it is more widely adopted.
Principle #4: Dream.Org will be vigilant against the infringement of peoples’ rights & dignity and the use of racial bias as AI-based methods of surveillance are increasingly incorporated into approaches to law enforcement, incarceration, supervision, and employment. Beyond this, AI systems must not perpetuate or exacerbate racial bias or disparities, nor be designed, deployed, or used in ways that produce such outcomes.
Principle #5: As an organization committed to economic opportunity, we will advocate for a transparent and accommodating transition, should AI cause a massive disruption to the economy.
Principle #6: Dream.Org’s internal usage of AI should be conducted consistently with the external values we are supporting. That means using these tools responsibly in a way that does not cause harm to ourselves or to others, while at the same time exploring AI use cases and technological applications that can strengthen the movements we work with.
Principle #7: Given that “Soul” is one of Dream.Org’s core values, our historic collaborations with artists, and the threat AI poses to creative industries, Dream.Org will commit to producing external content that is led by human creatives, even if they use AI assistance, both because it is the right thing to do and because it is more effective content.
Principle #8: Dream.Org will advocate externally for policies to support the above principles consistent with what our resources and bandwidth allow.
Principle #9: Given how quickly and dramatically this technology is evolving, Dream.Org will commit to ongoing internal conversations and reviews about how we approach AI.
