Questions before signing

Signing the synthesis manifesto expresses support for its stated principles. It puts your name beside those principles in public. It is worth being clear about what that means before you decide.

Am I endorsing a product or committing my employer?

You are signing in your own name. A signature does not represent your employer, authorize use of its name, or establish that it has adopted synthesis. The initiative is independent of its signatories’ employers.

Signing does not require a subscription, a purchase or the use of any particular tool. The synthesis work system and skills are ways to put the ideas into practice; agreement with the manifesto is not a claim that you have inspected or approved every part of that software.

If your role limits the public endorsements you can make, that is a reason to exercise your own judgment about signing. Reading, questioning and using the ideas do not require a public endorsement.

Do I have to follow every principle perfectly?

A signature is an expression of support, not a certification that your work has passed an audit. You can support a standard while knowing that you sometimes fall short of it.

Disagreement is different. If a principle asks for something you do not support, you should not feel obliged to sign. The individual chapters explain the reasoning and limits, and the wording page identifies proposed changes. Those explanations do not quietly replace the signed statement.

Can I use the practices without signing?

Yes. You can try a useful practice on a real piece of work and judge it by what happens. For example, leave a short handoff containing the current result, the evidence supporting it and the next unresolved decision. See whether another person can continue without asking you to reconstruct the work.

The manifesto is in the public domain. Software in the wider ecosystem has its own licenses; check the license of the component you want to use or distribute.

Does this mean AI belongs in every task?

No. The decision to use AI comes before the question of how to use it well. A task may need a person with relevant knowledge, a conventional tool, or a process that keeps particular information away from a model.

Suppose a team needs to total a stable set of numbers. An ordinary calculation may give it a clearer, cheaper and more reproducible answer than a generated explanation. If the team instead needs help exploring several ways to explain a complicated result, an assistant may be useful. The task and its constraints should determine that choice.

Does human judgment mean approving every action?

No. People can delegate decisions within a defined scope. Requiring a person to click through every routine step can consume the attention needed for consequential decisions.

Meaningful control requires someone who understands the decision, has enough information to challenge it and can actually change what happens. A reviewer with no time, no access to the source and no authority to stop a release provides little protection. The human judgment chapter explores that distinction.

Human involvement is not automatically a remedy for bad decisions. The AI Risk Management Framework’s discussion of human–AI interaction describes both the need to define human responsibilities and the ways human biases can enter or worsen a system. The manifesto’s preference for human judgment is a commitment about responsibility, not a claim that a person will always outperform a machine.

Does the manifesto protect people from losing their jobs?

It cannot make that promise. Employment decisions, bargaining power and the distribution of economic gains are larger questions than a work methodology can settle.

Keeping people responsible for decisions should have practical consequences. People affected by a change need a way to question it. Those expected to supervise a system need the time and authority to do so. A team should examine who gains from an automation, who carries new burdens, and what happens when someone challenges its result.

But the twelve principles are not an employment guarantee or a complete labor policy. An organization that wants to make commitments about retraining, staffing or sharing gains must state and honor those commitments separately. It should not point to a signature as evidence that it has already done so.

How much process does this require?

The record should be proportionate to the decision. A disposable sketch may need only a label saying it is exploratory. A public report needs enough sourcing for its claims. An irreversible change involving other people’s information calls for stronger checks and clear authority.

If the process consumes more effort than the decision warrants, reduce it thoughtfully. Keep the part that helps someone verify, challenge or continue the work. There is no virtue in a long record nobody can use.

Are these ideas new?

Many are familiar. The purpose is to apply them consistently to work with AI, where a confident response can be mistaken for verified progress and useful context can be trapped in a conversation or a tool.

A familiar practice does not need a new name to be useful. Equally, putting familiar practices in a manifesto does not prove that the whole set works. That judgment needs experience with actual tasks, including the costs and failures.

What if the wording changes, or I want my name removed?

The wording and history page separates the signed statement from commentary and proposed revisions. Earlier signatures must not be represented as approval of a later substantive change. The guide published on September 26, 2026 leaves the signed statement intact.

The manifesto page links to a request form for removing a signature. That form creates a public issue, so include only the public name and details needed to identify the entry. Do not post private identity documents or sensitive correspondence there.

If the principles reflect how you want to work, you can add your name. If you are still weighing them, the guide is here to make that judgment easier.