Is there a legal argument for what RAISE-UP is proposing?

 

RAISE-UP’s call to redirect artificial intelligence toward human flourishing rests on a clear principle of justice: no one should be enriched unfairly at another’s expense. In law, this is the doctrine of unjust enrichment—a safeguard against profiting from value created by others without fair return. Today’s AI developers and investors are earning unprecedented gains built on value they did not create alone. Their success depends on a vast foundation of public investment and shared human contribution: taxpayer-funded research, publicly supported education, open academic science, and the collective data, language, and creativity of billions of people.

 

The infrastructure that made AI possible—the Internet (ARPANET and NSFNET), GPS, semiconductors, cloud computing, and decades of federally funded research through DARPA, NSF, and NASA—was built by the public. Universities supported by taxpayers trained the engineers and scientists behind every major AI breakthrough. Government agencies opened massive datasets in health, weather, and education that underpin today’s machine learning. Even the digital commons—our conversations, art, and online content—are now mined to train systems that generate immense private profits. When the rewards from these public and collective foundations flow almost exclusively to a small number of corporations and shareholders, society faces not innovation but unjust enrichment on a global scale.

 

RAISE-UP’s framework seeks restitution through redirection, not punishment or confiscation. The goal is to restore balance by ensuring that AI’s gains return to the people who made them possible. That means incentives for companies to create and augment jobs rather than replace them; policies that channel a portion of AI-driven wealth into affordable healthcare, housing, and education; and transparency about how automation affects workers and communities. These measures honor the same principle that guides the law of restitution: when benefits are drawn from shared resources, those benefits must circulate back to the public good.

 

In essence, RAISE-UP’s vision is a modern expression of fairness embedded in both moral and legal tradition. The public built the groundwork for AI—and therefore, the public deserves to share in its prosperity. Redirecting AI toward a people-centered economy is not only an ethical imperative; it is the rightful fulfillment of the law’s oldest promise: that wealth created by all should serve the flourishing of all.