The Declaration In the Age of General Purpose AI

Stanford Legal · Jul 28, 2026 · 1h 7m

"The Declaration meets the machine age"

In this episode of The Declaration at 250, Michael McConnell frames a question the Founders never confronted: if the Declaration grounds rights in human nature, what happens when machines can generate persuasive, human-like language at scale? Constitutional scholar Alexander Tsesis argues that the Declaration’s conception of rights is inherently human-centered—rooted in consciousness, moral agency, intentionality, and the capacity to participate in a constitutional republic—so AI systems are not and should not become First Amendment rights-holders. He…