The AI Governor designation — how it works
AI Governors is a global community that stewards an open standard for Physical AI Governance. The AI Governor designation is how that community organizes itself geographically: one named steward per region, responsible for keeping the standard honest, current, and present where they live. This page explains exactly what the designation is, what it isn't, what earns it, and what keeps it — in full, so you can decide before you apply.
1 · What it is, in one paragraph
An AI Governor is a volunteer regional steward of an open-standards project. They review the drafts with their region's context, run at least one local session per release cycle, and act as the named point of contact and representative for their region inside the working group. The role is earned against a stated commitment, granted by the community (currently the convening steward while the working group forms), held by meeting the commitment, and reopened publicly if it lapses.
2 · What it is not
It is not a government position, an elected or appointed office, an official or legal title, or a role with any regulatory, licensing, or enforcement power. An AI Governor cannot bind a company, certify a product, act for a government, or claim to. The word "Governor" is used in its community-steward sense — as in the steward of a chartered body or a project — never in its governmental sense. We state this plainly, repeatedly, and on the record, because the standard concerns machines that can apply force in public, and a designation that blurred this line could mislead exactly the people — officials, buyers, the public — who most need clarity. If any Governor ever represents the designation as an official office, the designation is withdrawn.
3 · Why one steward per region
Standards that govern physical safety cannot be written from one place. A rule that works for a warehouse robot in one jurisdiction may collide with the machinery law, the data-protection regime, or the policing norms of another. The one-steward-per-region model — borrowed directly from how ISO convenes one national member body per country — is the mechanism that forces regional reality into the standard before it hardens. The granularity (US states, Canadian provinces, every country) matches where robotics deployment and its regulation actually diverge.
4 · The commitment, in detail
One cycle = one release cycle of the standard, roughly quarterly.
Good: a specific conflict with a regional rule ("this collides with our machinery ordinance"), a proposed carve-out ("PAFC-3 needs an exception for care robots"), a schema objection ("this audit-log field won't survive our data-protection regime"). Not: approval without content. The kind of comment that changes a line.
Any format that puts the draft in front of your region and brings something back: a meetup, a university seminar, a robotics team's internal review, a call with a local regulator. The deliverable is a short written field report on what you ran and what you heard — that report is a primary input to the next draft, and often more valuable than the review.
Its regulations, its deployments, its incidents — into the standard; and the standard back out to your region. This is the part that can't be automated and can't be faked.
5 · How it's granted, kept, and reopened
Granted. You apply — a GitHub Issue (AI Governor: <your region>) or one email to [email protected] — with your region, your background, and one line on why this matters where you are. The working group reviews the application against the commitment. Expertise helps; consistent presence counts more — a functional-safety engineer is welcome, but so is a committed local organizer who will actually run the sessions.
We will not overstate the current process. Until the working group is seated, the convening steward (Cognita GRC) confirms designations directly, and the site says so on the record. As the working group forms, confirmation moves to it. Every confirmation is announced in the Latest strip and credited in the repository — so the process is auditable from the outside at every stage.
Kept — and reopened. The seat is a rolling commitment, not a lifetime title. Meet the commitment across a cycle and you keep it. Miss a cycle because life happened — tell us, and it holds. Go silent, and the seat reopens, publicly, on the wall. The Wall of Governors only ever shows people currently doing the work: a wall of names who signed up once and vanished would be worth nothing, and would quietly discredit everyone still on it.
6 · What a Governor gets, and doesn't
Your name on the wall as your region's Governor. Credit by name in the documents you shape — the RFC that becomes a citable standard carries the people who wrote it. A standing invitation to every working session. And the specific standing of a founding Governor: the first cohort shaped the Force Continuum before it hardened, and the record shows it.
No payment, no equity, no employment, no exclusivity — it is a volunteer role in an open project. What it offers is authorship of something that doesn't exist anywhere else yet, and a seat at the table where it's decided.
7 · Conduct of the role
A Governor represents an open, public-safety-first standard, and the way they hold the role is part of what the role means:
- Accuracy over advocacy. Represent the standard as what it is — a draft for comment, complementing (not replacing) ISO 10218:2025, ISO 13482, the EU Machinery Regulation, the EU AI Act, and ISO/IEC 42001. Never as a certification, a law, or a finished thing.
- No overreach. Never present the designation as an official office or imply authority it doesn't carry.
- Open by default. Reviews, session reports, and decisions happen in the open repository. Governors don't hold private side-authority over the standard.
- Independence disclosed. A Governor who also works for a robotics vendor, a regulator, or Cognita says so, so their input can be weighed honestly.
- The seat serves the region, not the person. It is stewardship, not status. When you can't serve, you say so, and the seat holds or reopens honestly.
8 · Who convenes this
AI Governors is convened and stewarded by Cognita GRC, which drafted the v0.1 standards and maintains the repository and this site. Cognita is the steward, not the owner: the standard text is licensed CC BY 4.0 and the API specification Apache-2.0; anyone may read, comment, implement, or fork. Stewardship means convening and maintaining the process, not controlling the outcome — as the working group seats, decisions move to it under the rough-consensus model in PAIG-0. Cognita is disclosed as the convener everywhere this could matter, including here.
9 · Questions a skeptic should ask
- Is this an official or government role?
- No. It is a community designation in an open-standards project, with no legal, regulatory, or enforcement authority. See Section 2.
- Do I need to be a robotics or safety expert?
- It helps, and expertise is credited, but consistent presence counts more. Regulators, ethicists, organizers, and local conveners are as needed as engineers.
- What does it cost? Am I paid?
- Nothing, and no. It's a volunteer role in an open project. No fee to apply, no payment to serve.
- Is the wall real, or are those names coming?
- The wall is a live record. Today every seat is open, and it says so. It will only ever show people currently meeting the commitment. There are no placeholder or honorary names, now or later.
- What if two people apply for the same region?
- The working group reviews both; the region can support co-stewards or a primary with backups where it makes sense. The goal is coverage and continuity, not exclusivity for its own sake.
- Can my organization hold a seat?
- The seat is held by a named person for continuity and accountability, though that person may be affiliated with an organization (disclosed per Section 7).
- What happens if I can't keep it up?
- Tell us — a missed cycle for real-life reasons holds the seat. Sustained silence reopens it, publicly and without prejudice; you can reapply.
Ready?
Open an Issue — AI Governor: <your region> — or email [email protected] with your region, background, and one line on why it matters where you are. Every seat is open. The first cohort are founding Governors of a standard that doesn't exist anywhere else yet.