INTEGRITY

Been ruminating over our need for INTEGRITY in our lives… and to be clear, I have plenty of integrity in my personal world, I am speaking in a grander scale for this essay; we need integrity in our world, our institutions and in our values for the current culture to improve.

So we need to agree on a few principles of integrity before moving forward:

1.    integrity is what you do when no one is watching.

2.    integrity is a compass, not a badge.

3.    integrity requires self-honesty.

4.    integrity creates trust.

5.    integrity lets you respect yourself and others.

Integrity is less about perfection and more about alignment; the ongoing practice of bringing your actions, words, and choices into line with your values – even when doing so is uncomfortable, inconvenient, or invisible to others. As clean and clear as the 20,000 or so breaths we effortlessly take in and out each and every day… without a hitch and without a thought. 

And sidebar, sorry to those who do suffer with respiratory illnesses; I hope you can appreciate the simplicity with which my statement was made.

When your choices match your principles, you can live with yourself more easily, regardless of outcomes. This creates trust in oneself just as much as it does for others in your circle. I do not know how to create trust within our institutions other than getting back to the basics of relationships. Trust-based programming for AI in our institutions, then after some time, the obvious will become tangible and no longer sold.

Some basic ideas for how we could move toward integrity-based trust with AI:

1.    transparency becomes a core norm

2.    incentives need to reward truthfulness over virality

3.    verification becomes automated and normal

4.    human values must guide AI, not the other way around

5.    cultural norms of ‘slow thinking’ must be cultivated

6.    leaders modeling integrity is still essential

7.    we need shared ground rules

AI doesn’t automatically move us toward integrity; it magnifies whatever values we build into it. If we embed transparency, accountability, and evidence at the core, it can become a force that lifts public trust rather than erodes it.

And then of course, I had to ask AI if it would provide ‘practical, realistic policy models’ that could help weave integrity, and therefore trust, into politics, news, social media and AI. The answers we not utopian, they were variants of ideas already tested in some countries or industries:

1.    Media Provenance Standards (or ‘nutrition labels’ for information)

2.    Platform Accountability & Audit Requirements

3.    Truthfulness Incentive Structures

4.    Verified Political Messaging Rules

5.    Public Service Algorithms

6.    AI Fact-Checking Infrastructure

7.    Digital Civic Literacy Requirements

8.    Whistleblower Protections for Algorithmic Harm

9.    Safe Harbor for Responsible AI Use in Journalism

10. A ‘Public Integrity Index’ for Institutions

At first glance, these seem rather simple solutions for what is a complex undertaking, but we won’t know until we start, and likely, this is something we can learn as we grow. Which makes me curious who might be stopping these changes, and it would seem just about everyone who is currently controlling our purse strings has a reason to keep things status quo. So where do we begin?

Fact-checking before believing seems a great place to begin in all areas of our lives, including the big three:  social media, news and politics. Calling our local government, getting involved in your city through any means motivating for you, and enacting your own integrity practice.