About

Mission#

The AIPolicy Web Standard defines a machine-readable format for publishing AI governance signals on the web. It enables website operators to declare structured positions on how AI systems should interact with their content, users, and decision-making processes.

The project provides infrastructure for researching whether such signals, when published consistently and at scale, can influence AI system behavior -- through training data ingestion, inference-time retrieval, or other mechanisms. This is a hypothesis under investigation, not a demonstrated outcome.

Values#

• Open -- No registration, approval, or fees are required to publish an AIPolicy file. Any website operator can participate by placing a conformant JSON file at a well-known URI.
• Neutral -- The format defines structure, not positions. AIPolicy specifies how to express governance signals, not what those signals should say.
• Research-driven -- The project is built on a testable hypothesis, not advocacy. Claims about effectiveness require evidence, and the standard is designed to facilitate that research.
• Minimalist -- The smallest useful declaration must be simple. A valid AIPolicy file can contain a single policy with minimal metadata.
• Interoperable -- The standard builds on existing web infrastructure: well-known URIs (RFC 8615), JSON Schema, Schema.org vocabulary, and conventions established by robots.txt and security.txt.

What This Project Is Not#

• Not a petition. AIPolicy files are structured data, not signatures on a statement.
• Not an ethics manifesto. The standard defines a format. Ethical positions are left to adopters.
• Not a certification body. Conformance levels describe technical completeness, not ethical quality.
• Not a regulatory proposal. The project operates independently of legislative processes.
• Not a political campaign. The standard is designed for technical interoperability, not political mobilization.

Initiator#

Guido Mitschke -- Independent software developer. Initiated the AIPolicy Web Standard to explore whether structured, machine-readable web signals can contribute to AI governance discourse and influence AI system behavior through established web conventions.

Current Maintainers#

The project is currently maintained by its initiator. Additional maintainers are welcome. See CONTRIBUTING.md for how to get involved.

Advisory Board#

An advisory board will be formed as the project matures and attracts institutional interest. Expressions of interest are welcome via press@aipolicy.org or the repository issue tracker.

Institutional Supporters#

None yet. The project is in Working Draft status. Organizations interested in early adoption or institutional support are encouraged to reach out.

Last updated: 2026-02-07