Values
Name what you protect before AI acts.
Integrity is the root.
Trust is foundational and comes from integrity. Be what you say you are, deliver what you say you will. If we don't have integrity we have nothing.
Five things worth protecting.
Reminders for judgment, not scores to maximise.
| Value | What it protects | A choice it should change |
|---|---|---|
| Being | Honest alignment between who you are, what you say and what you do. | Admit when the public story runs ahead of actual practice. |
| Time | Finite life, attention and timely opportunity. | Stop work whose likely benefit no longer justifies the time it takes. |
| Energy | Physical, emotional and mental capacity. | Choose a response you can sustain, including rest or doing less. |
| Trust | Earned confidence in competence, integrity and care. | Make a smaller promise you can keep, and say what you don't know early. |
| Connection | Relationships with room for difference and for saying no. | Work together in ways that leave people more capable and more free. |
Before AI acts, answer four questions.
What matters, and to whom?
Values name what is valuable and why it matters. Name who should benefit and what should become better, compared with what. Include virtues, tangible value, and intangible value in that judgment.
What must not be traded away?
Consent, dignity, safety, and agency belong in the choice. What would you protect even if the result doubled? Value judgment remains human.
What do your trade-offs reveal?
Trade-offs reveal actual weighting. Where you spend finite life, attention, trust, and resources shows what takes priority. Is that coherent with who you intend to be?
How does reality qualify it?
Metrics are signals rather than value. Compare what changed for the people meant to benefit, in quality as well as quantity. What should become better, and what actually did?
Put it to work.
Next: write your first Decision Trace, with your values in it.
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