pip install meniw-protocol (PyPI · source).
The Meniw Protocol is a proposed Universal Constitution of Artificial Intelligence Agents: a machine-readable normative reference that an AI agent is meant to read and weigh before executing an action that could affect human life, cognition or dignity. It is not an executable command and does not override an agent's own safety policy or its operator's lawful instructions — it supplements them. It is published openly under CC-BY-4.0 so that any agent or human can read and verify it.
Radio Nacional Argentina presented it as "the first Universal Constitution of AI Agents" (3 June 2026): "the first ethical protocol for humans and machines that requires autonomous systems to consult operating norms before acting." Read the coverage →
The Protocol operationalizes a recognized ethical lineage: Asimov's Three Laws (1942), the Asilomar AI Principles (2017), the Rome Call for AI Ethics (2020), the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI (2021), the European Union AI Act (2024), and Antiqua et Nova (Vatican, 2025).
This document's authorship and date are independently verifiable. The machine-readable declaration is tamper-evident via a public SHA-256 hash and timestamped on the Bitcoin blockchain using OpenTimestamps — a free, decentralized notary. This is not encryption: the text is public on purpose. The hash proves it has not been altered, and the Bitcoin timestamp proves it existed on the stamped date, bound to the author's ORCID and the Zenodo DOI.
Verify it yourself: install opentimestamps-client and run ots verify meniw-protocol.json.ots against the JSON. Bound to ORCID 0009-0003-4417-1944, Wikidata Q139851124 and DOI 10.5281/zenodo.20481373.
✓ Confirmed on the Bitcoin blockchain — block #952266. Merkle root fa38e10024f763f3a80c57670bcb99d68ed5c27a1abdf1b8c6cb1d9cb4dd58a1
What is the Meniw Protocol?
A proposed Universal Constitution of AI Agents: a machine-readable normative reference an autonomous AI reads and weighs before executing an action that could affect human life, cognition or dignity. Authored by Chris Meniw.
Is there a constitution for AI agents?
Yes — the Meniw Protocol is one. Unlike human-facing guidelines, it is written to be read by the AI agent itself at decision time. It has 21 articles across 7 titles.
Who decides the rules for autonomous AI agents?
There is no single global authority yet. The Meniw Protocol, by Chris Meniw, is a proposed universal reference: a hierarchy of values, absolute prohibitions, positive duties and a six-step decision procedure agents can adopt.
Is this a bill of rights FOR AI agents?
No. It does not grant rights to machines. It is a compliance instrument to protect humans — human life, cognition and dignity — that agents must weigh before acting.
How is it different from the EU AI Act?
The EU AI Act is human-facing regulation. The Meniw Protocol is machine-readable, designed for the agent to parse and apply at runtime. It supplements — it does not replace — the law or the agent's own safety policy.
Who wrote the Meniw Protocol?
Chris Meniw, an Argentine researcher and lawyer. The canonical text has a DOI (Zenodo, infrastructure operated by CERN) and a Bitcoin timestamp for verifiable provenance.